LIBRARY 

OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

V 

^ 

Class 


HISTORY 


OF 


THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE 


BY 

JAMES   Q.  HOWARD 


UNIVERSITY 


CHICAGO 

CALLAGHAN    &    COMPANY 
1902 


COPYRIGHT  1902 

BY 

CALLAGHAN  &  COMPANY 


TO   ETHEL  HOWARD, 

A  grateful  recognition  is  due  for  reflecting  a  radiant  joy  upon 
one  life  that  may  prove  a  benediction  to  others  than  the  author 
of  her  being,  and  of  this  book. 

LOTOS  CLUB,  NEW  YORK, 
August  77,  1002 


121308 


PREFATORY  OBSERVATIONS. 


This  History  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  was 
written  prior  to  a  work  on  the  same  subject  by  Mr. 
J.  K.  Hosmer.  The  latter  being  essentially  a  work 
of  fiction,  but  faintly  historical,  in  no  way  conflicts 
with  this  relation  of  fact  which  has  gone  forth  with 
the  approval  of  the  Exposition  Company  at  St. 
Louis.  The  early  history  of  the  vast  domain  trans 
ferred  by  France  to  the  United  States  in  1803  is 
found  in  the  Margry  papers,  in  the  other  official  or 
personal  accounts  of  the  first  explorers  and  settlers, 
and  in  various  cotemporary  records  and  writings. 
The  American  State  Papers,  the  archives  of  the 
Department  of  State,  the  acts  and  utterances  of 
public  men,  best  make  known  what  took  place  at  the 
time  of  the  actual  acquisition  of  Louisiana.  These 
sources  of  information  having  been  examined, 
long  lists  of  references  and  authorities  need  not 
burden  a  condensed  account  of  our  first  peaceful 
expansion  of  territory. 

JAMES  Q.  HOWAKD. 

"Washington,  August  6,  1902. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I. 
THE  LOUISIANA  REGION  PRIOR  TO  THE  YEAR  1700. 

De  Narvaez,  De   Soto,    Joliet    and    Marquette,    La 

Salle 7, 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  LOUISIANA  DOMINION. 

Period  of  Settlement  and  Transition — From  1700  to 

Peace  Treaty  of  1782 18 

CHAPTER  III. 

REACHING  TO  THE  MISSISSIPPI. 

Great  Treaties  of  1782-3— Who  Made  Them 34 

CHAPTER    IV. 
THE  CRITICAL  PERIOD  OF  SPANISH  RULE  IN  LOUISIANA. 

From  1784  to   1789— Disturbed  Relations  with  the 

West  48 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  FIRST  PRESIDENT. 

Steps  to  Secure  Free  Navigation — This  Great  Gov 
ernment's  Real  Beginning   62 

CHAPTER   VI. 

WASHINGTON'S  SECOND  TERM. 

Louisiana  from  March,  1793,  to  1797 — Young  Nation 

Beset  by  Enemies 74 

5 


6  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VII. 
LOUISIANA  DURING  TIIE  TERM  OF  JOHN  ADAMS. 

Foresight  of  Hamilton — More  Trouble  with  Spain — 

St.  Louis  Serence 83 

CHAPTER   VIII. 
LOUISIANA  DURING  THE  YEARS  1801  AND  1802. 

Transfer  from  Spain  to  France — Livingston,  Napo 
leon,  Jefferson,  Madison 94   - 

CHAPTER   IX. 

THE  GREAT  TREATY  OF  APRIL  30,  1803. 
The  Correspondence  Preceding  It — Who  Made  It. .   106 

CHAPTER  X. 
ECHOES  OF  THE  GREAT  TREATY. 

Bonaparte's    Motives    for     Selling    Louisiana — His 

Prophecies — How  Acquisition  Was  Received. . . .   117 

CHAPTER  XL 

LOUISIANA  PURCHASE  STATES. 
Conditions  in  1803  and  1900  Contrasted 126  — 

SUPPLEMENTAL. 

Creators  and  Preservers  of  the  Republic 142 

Foremost  Patriots  and  Benefactors — 

Washington    143 

Hamilton 145 

Lincoln   147 

Franklin   149 

Marshall    151 

Webster    153 

Grant    155 

Livingston   157 

Jackson  ,  159 


THE 

UNIVERSITY 

.IFSKli^ 


HISTORY 

OF  THE 

LOUSIANA   PURCHASE 


CHAPTEE   I. 

THE  LOUISIANA  REGION  PRIOR  TO  THE 
YEAR  1700. 

DE     NARVAEZ,      DE     SOTO,      JOLIET      AND      MARQUETTE, 
LA  SALLE. 

TO   KNOW   the   history   of   the   Louisiana 
Purchase,  we  must  know  the  prior  his 
tory  of  the  territory  purchased.  Who  dis 
covered  and  explored  this  vast  domain! 
Who  settled  and  developed  it?     Who  exercised 
sovereignty  and  established  political  governments 
over  it?  are  questions  to  be  considered  and  an 
swered. 

The  first  European  commissioned  to  exercise  any 
legitimate  authority  over  any  part  of  this  terri 
tory  was  the  ill-fortuned  Spanish  officer,  Narvaez. 
Panfilo  3e  Narvaez  was  fourteen  when  Columbus 
discovered  the  West  Indies.  He  was  born  where 
the  great  navigator  died— at  Valladolid.  As  sec 
ond  in  command  to  Velasquez,  who  had  conquered 
Cuba,  he  was  sent  to  supersede  the  indomitable 

7 


8  THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

Cortez,  who  had  conquered  Mexico.  Cortez  gave 
his  would-be  successor  defeat  with  a  blind  eye, 
and  incorporated  the  invading  army  in  his  own. 
The  partial  blindness  of  this  representative  of 
royal  authority  seems  to  have  characterized  all 
colonizing  Spaniards  since,  until  the  climax  of 
total  blindness  was  reached  in  1800,  through  the 
profitless  transfer  to  France  of  an  empire  larger 
than  that  of  Charlemagne.  For  his  early  exploits 
in  Cuba,  the  one-eyed  hero,  Narvaez,  was  made 
second  governor  of  Florida,  with  authority  ex 
tending  definitely  beyond  the  present  state  of 
Louisiana  and  indefinitely  over  all  the  forests, 
rivers,  swamps  and  savages  he  could  conquer. 
The  Indians  and  alligators  came  off  victorious, 
and  Narvaez  perished  miserably  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Mississippi  in  vessels  that  were  not  seaworthy. 

DE  so TO. 

Four  men  survived  of  four  hundred,  and  there 
by  hangs  a  tale  of  woe  and  glory.  These  survivors 
were  the  first  white  men  to  cross  the  Mississippi 
and  the  American  continent.  Cabeza  de  Vaca,  one 
of  the  four,  who  reached  Spain  by  the  way  of  New 
Mexico,  became  the  historian  of  his  own  wander 
ings.  De  Vaca's  glowing  oral  accounts  of  the  Rio 
del  Oro  and  of  wonderful  regions  and  cities,  fired 
the  ambition  of  Hernando  de  Soto,  who  had 
gained  wealth  and  distinction  under  the  renowned 
Pizarro  in  the  conquest  of  Peru.  Having  won  the 
hand  of  his  chieftain's  daughter,  De  Soto  sought 


THE   LOUISIANA   REGION  9 

and  obtained  the  governorship  of  Cuba.  He  pro 
posed  to  his  sovereign,  Charles  V,  to  conquer 
Florida  at  his  own  expense.  The  restless,  the  am 
bitious,  the  avaricious  and  even  the  settled  owners 
of  vineyards  and  olive  groves,  sold  all  to  follow 
the  Peruvian  hero.  The  nobility  and  aristocracy 
of  Spain  made  a  mad  rush  for  gold  and  became 
the  discoverers  of  the  Mississippi.  Having  left 
his  wife,  the  daughter  of  Pizarro,  to  govern  Cuba, 
De  Soto  sailed  away  to  his  own  destruction  and 
that  of  five  hundred  of  his  followers,  as  if  he  were 
gaily  maneuvering  in  a  holiday  naval  parade. 
Chains  for  captives  and  bloodhounds  for  fleeing 
aborigines,  were  parts  of  an  unwise  and  imperfect 
equipment  of  the  third  Spanish  expedition  into 
the  interior  of  Florida.  Landing  on  the  west 
coast,  these  high-born  adventurers  turned  towards 
Appalachee  Bay;  thence  westward  to  Pensa^ola 
Bay.  After  wandering  over  what  are  now  Georgia 
and  Alabama,  De  Soto  returned  to  the  present 
site  of  Mobile,  where  he  destroyed  a  large  Indian 
town,  slaughtering  more  than  two  thousand  of  its 
inhabitants.  Pursuing  the  foolish  policy  of  treat 
ing  all  Indian  tribes  as  enemies,  the  new  governor 
was  soon  in  an  unending  conflict  with  his  new  sub 
jects.  One  he  ordered  burned  alive  for  bluntly 
declaring  that  he  knew  of  no  country  where  gold 
abounded.  Thenceforward  compulsory  guides 
promptly  manufactured  the  information  de 
manded.  Then  they  were  thrown  to  the  blood 
hounds  for  misleading  the  gold  hunters.  Receiv 
ing  supplies  from  Cuba,  the  haughty  De  Soto, 


10         TEE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

regardless  of  failure,  marched  northwest  to  and 
across  the  Yazoo  River.  Near  this  "river  of 
death "  their  winter  quarters  were  burned,  their 
food,  shelter  and  clothing  being  wholly  destroyed. 
It  was  while  moving  westward,  clothed  in  skins 
of  animals  and  in  mats  made  of  rushes  and  wild 
ivy,  that  these  starving  Dons  first  beheld  the 
majestic  Mississippi.  Powell's  painting  of  this 
beggarly  scene  does  great  credit  to  that  artist's 
wealth  of  invention.  The  point  of  discovery  was 
near  the  thirty-fifth  parallel,  now  known  as  the 
lowest  Chickasaw  Bluff.  In  May,  1541,  the  ex 
ploring  party  crossed  the  Great  River  of  Florida, 
as  the  Spaniards  first  called  it,  and  ascending  the 
west  bank  and  branching  off  northwest,  reached 
the  upper  waters  of  the  White  River,  about  two 
hundred  miles  from  the  Great  River.  From  just 
above  the  State  line  of  Missouri,  the  extreme 
northern  limit  of  De  Soto's  explorations,  the 
party  crossed  the  Arkansas  to  the  salt  waters  of 
the  Washita,  and  descending  along  that  stream 
returned  to  the  Mississippi  at  the  junction  of  Red 
River.  Broken  down  by  malarial  fevers  and  dis 
heartened  by  his  inability  to  penetrate  the  forests 
and  marshes  of  the  lower  Mississippi,  De  Soto 
calmly  prepared  for  his  departure  to  another  and 
still  stranger  world.  He  called  his  chiefs  around 
him  at  the  last  hour  and  selected  Moscoso  as  his 
successor.  He  was  first  buried  within  the  enclo 
sure  of  the  encampment,  but  later  his  followers, 
fearing  that  ill  consequences  might  flow  from  the 
knowledge  of  his  mortality  and  death,  his  body 


THE   LOUISIANA   REGION  11 

was  heavily  weighted  and  sunk  at  midnight  in  the 
deep  water  channel  of  what  seemed  to  be  a  great 
flowing  inland  sea.  A  fitting  burial  place  truly 
for  a  relentless  chieftain  whose  cruelties  were  re 
volting,  who  was  as  pitiless  and  merciless  as  the 
devastating  torrents  of  a  river  that  destroys  babes 
in  their  cradles  and  drags  children  from  their 
mother's  arms.  De  Soto  died  May  21,  1542,  and 
Moscoso  returned  by  the  way  of  Texas  and  Mex 
ico  to  Spain  with  less  than  one-third  of  the  gay 
naval  expedition  that  set  out  from  Havana  nearly 
two  years  before. 

JOLIET    AND    MARQUETTE. 

More  than  a  century  and  a  quarter  had  elapsed 
from  the  time  when  the  half-starved  Spaniards 
fled  from  the  lower  Mississippi,  to  the  year  when 
the  Frenchmen,  Joliet  and  Marquette,  appeared 
upon  its  upper  waters.  These  experienced  explor 
ers,  with  a  party  of  seven,  starting  from  Mack 
inaw  in  two  birch  canoes,  ascended  Fox  River  and 
connected  by  a  narrow  portage  with  the  upper 
Wisconsin.  Floating  down  the  latter,  the  beauty 
of  the  shores  of  which  impressed  them  much,  they 
entered  the  Father  of  Waters  on  the  current  of 
the  Wisconsin,  June  17,  1673.  They  descended 
the  great  river  for  a  thousand  miles.  Exploring, 
they  seemed  much  impressed  by  the  frightful 
appearance  of  the  monsters  painted  in  red,  blue 
and  green  colors,  that  disfigured  certain  high  cliffs 
below  the  mouth  of  the  Illinois.  Pursuing  the 


THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

humane  and  wise  policy  of  kindness  and  frank 
ness,  the  chiefs  of  the  Illinois  Indians  received 
Joliet  and  Marquette  in  their  native  and  naked 
dignity,  smoking  the  calumet  of  peace,  and  declar 
ing  with  inborn  grace,  that  their  presence  "made 
the  river  more  calm,  the  sky  more  serene  and  the 
earth  more  beautiful."  They  passed  the  lonely 
forest  that  covered  the  site  of  the  now  busy  and 
opulent  city  of  St.  Louis,  and  later,  saw  on  their 
left  the  stream  to  which  the  Iroquois  had  given 
the  name  of  the  Ohio  or  Beautiful  River.  The 
whole  of  the  name  and  parts  of  the  river  have 
remained  beautiful.  Having  successfully  explored 
the  Mississippi  to  the  Arkansas,  some  six  hun 
dred  miles  from  its  mouth,  the  discoverers  accom 
plished  a  perilous  but  safe  return,  having  been 
absent  from  civilization  just  four  months. 

Joliet,  although  the  son  of  a  Quebec  wagon- 
maker,  was  an  enterprising  trader,  a  brave,  keen- 
eyed  explorer  and  an  honorable  man.  Unfortu 
nately  for  his  fame  and  fortune  he  lost  in  the 
Lachine  Rapids  on  his  return,  within  sight  of 
home,  his  papers  containing  the  history  of  his  dis 
coveries,  Indian  relics,  in  short,  everything  but 
life. 

Pere  Marquette  was  born  in  the  picturesque 
cathedral  town  of  Laon,  in  France.  A  Jesuit  with 
out  guile,  he  was  the  spiritual  guide  and  life  of 
the  expedition.  As  self-denying  a  soul  as  ever 
gave  up  life  for  humanity  and  God.  he  passed  to 
his  eternal  reward  in  May,  1675,  observing  all  the 
rites  of  his  church  and  murmuring  the  names  of 


THE   LOUISIANA   REGION  13 

Jesus  and  Mar}7,  while  calmly  expiring  in  the 
solitude  of  the  wilderness.  A  year  later  the 
Ottawas,  among  whom  the  pious  and  loving  mis 
sionary  had  long  labored,  tenderly  bore  his  re 
mains  in  a  casket  of  birch  from  near  the  promon 
tory  of  Sleeping  Bear,  where  they  rested,  to  the 
sacred  church  of  Saint  Ignace.  As  they  solemnly 
approached  the  mission  in  thirty  canoes,  chanting 
their  death  songs,  a  vast  multitude  of  Indians, 
traders  and  missionaries  thronged  the  shores, 
looking  on  the  strange  spectacle  in  mute  and 
reverential  awe.  To  this  day,  it  is  said,  that  storm- 
tossed  mariners  on  Lake  Michigan,  in  the  hour  of 
darkest  and  most  dreadful  peril,  invoke  on  their 
knees  the  prayerful  intercession  of  the  sainted 
Marquette.  This  Christian  martyr  has  been  hon 
ored  by  a  noble  statue  in  the  American  pantheon 
at  our  national  capital,  contributed  by  Wisconsin. 

SIEUR    DE    LA    SALLE. 

The  greatest  of  the  early  explorers  cannot  be 
followed  through  his  northern  lake  and  Canadian 
successes  and  failures;  his  quarrels  with  the 
Jesuits  and  his  other  distressing  tribulations.  It 
is.  enough  to  know  that  his  merits  won  the  con 
fidence  and  unvarying  support  of  Count  Fron- 
tenac,  the  ablest  of  all  the  early  French  governors, 
and  that  the  illustrious  Colbert  and  the  worldly- 
wise  Louis  XIV  were  the  chief  promoters  of  his 
far-reaching  discoveries.  Born  of  good  family  in 
Eouen,  he  came  to  Canada  at  twenty-three,  with  a 


14         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

splendid  physique,  an  excellent  education,  high 
ideals  and  high  ambitions.  Among  the  fruits 
of  a  first  voyage  was  the  exploration  of  Lake  On 
tario,  the  discovery  of  the  Illinois  River,  and  a 
visit  to  the  Ohio  Elver  and  to  the  present  site 
of  Chicago.  From  the  second  expedition  resulted 
the  first  sight  and  first  description  of  Niagara 
Falls  by  Father  Hennepin,  one  of  La  Salle 's 
party;  the  building  of  the  "Griffon"  in  1679,  on 
Niagara  River ;  the  exploration  of  the  lakes  as  far 
as  Detroit  in  this  first  of  all  lake-sailing  vessels; 
the  traversing  of  the  upper  lakes  and  penetration 
of  the  interior  of  the  Illinois  country,  where  Fort 
Crevecoeur  was  built,  and  the  intrepid  explorer 's 
final  triumph  over  all  obstacles  and  enemies  in 
reaching  the  Mississippi  by  descending  the  River 
Illinois.  La  Salle  tells  us  that  he  was  detained  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Illinois  for  twelve  days,  by  float 
ing  ice ;  that  in  February,  1682,  he  found  himself 
moving  down  the  mighty  current  of  the  River 
' '  Colbert, "  as  he  named  it,  made  more  mighty  by 
the  muddy,  mad-rushing  Missouri ;  that  the  coun 
try  between  the  latter  river  and  the  Ohio,  he 
declares  in  simplest  French,  was  beautiful;  that 
game  abounded  near  where  we  know  De  Soto 
crossed ;  that  the  savages  were  hostile  between  the 
mouth  of  the  Arkansas  and  junction  of  Red  River, 
and  that  early  in  April,  the  parting  forks  of  the 
wonderful  river  were  before  his  delighted  eyes. 
On  April  9,  1682,  La  Salle  and  his  then  faithful 
followers,  having  passed  out  through  the  three 
channels  of  the  Mississippi  into  the  Gulf  of  Mex- 


THE   LOUISIANA   REGION  15 

ico,  effected  a  joint  landing,  and  there  planting 
the  holy  cross,  proclaimed  the  divinity  of  their 
religion  and  the  sovereignty  of  their  country,  "in 
the  name  of  the  most  high,  mighty,  invincible  and 
victorious  Prince  Louis  the  Great,  by  the  grace 
of  God,  King  of  France  and  of  Navarre. ' '  Shouts 
of  "Long  live  the  king!"  and  three  volleys  of 
musketry  confirmed  an  acquisition  or  grant  of 
stupendous,  though  unmeasured,  magnitude  to 
Louis  XIV,  the  then  most  powerful  monarch  in 
the  world.  The  successful  explorer  named  the 
whole  vast  region,  extending  to  Canada  and  to  the 
great  tributaries  northwest,  Louisiana,  in  honor  of 
its  new  sovereign. 

In  1684,  the  ever-friendly  Frontenac  having 
been  recalled,  and  the  large-minded  Colbert  hav 
ing  died,  the  indomitable  La  Salle  betook  himself 
to  the  court  of  Versailles,  where  his  significant 
services,  his  worth,  weight  and  dignity  of  char 
acter  secured  a  favorable  response  to  his  praise 
worthy  petition  and  lofty  prayer. 

The  minister  of  marine  and  colonies,  Seigne- 
lay,  the  son  of  Colbert,  agreed  to  fit  out  an  expedi 
tion  to  proceed  by  sea  to  the  mouth  of  the  Missis 
sippi,  for  no  less  grand  a  purpose  than  to  lay  the 
foundation  of  a  great  empire.  The  resolute 
La  Salle  purposed  to  establish  a  fort  and  a  colony, 
sixty  leagues  above  the  mouth  of  the  mighty  river, 
from  which  the  French  could  control  the  settle 
ment  of  a  continent  and  eventually  drive  the 
Spaniards  from  Mexico.  He  was  given  four  ves 
sels  to  be  commanded  "while  at  sea"  by  Beaujeu, 


16         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

a  captain  of  the  navy,  who  was  so  consumed  with 
conceit  that  the  ceaseless  recognition  of  his  own 
importance  appeared  more  essential  to  him  than 
the  success  of  the  expedition.  Through  the  in 
capacity  or  the  deception  of  Beaujeu,  the  colonists 
were  landed  at  Metagorda  Bay,  one  hundred  and 
thirty  leagues  west  of  their  destination.  From 
this  blunder  followed  no  end  of  disasters.  A 
landing  place  in  the  wilds  of  Texas  was  a  wholly 
different  thing  from  a  settlement  on  the  banks  of 
a  grand  continental  river.  The  martinet  of  the 
royal  navy  hastily  returned  to  France,  taking 
what  was  most  useful  to  the  colonists  with  him. 
The  abandoned  settlers  were  reduced  to  desperate 
straits.  La  Salle  and  his  colony,  while  suffering 
from  malarial  fevers,  from  lack  of  food  and  from 
all  the  perils  and  privations  of  the  wilderness, 
resolved  in  March,  1687,  as  a,  last  hope,  to  seek 
succor  from  the  remote  outposts  near  the  northern 
lakes.  Some  progress  had  been  made  in  this  dan 
gerous  direction,  when  a  hunter's  quarrel,  result 
ing  in  the  killing  of  Morenger,  La  Salle 's  nephew, 
precipitated  a  conspiracy,  which  ended  in  the 
assassination  of  the  intrepid  leader  of  the  expedi 
tion. 

Here,  on  a  branch  of  the  placid  Trinity  Eiver, 
beyond  the  restraints  of  civilization,  a  wretch 
named  Larchveque,  lures  under  the  guns  of  Duhaut 
and  Liotot,  two  other  despicable  miscreants  lying 
in  wait  in  the  reeds,  the  unsuspecting  survivor  of  a 
thousand  perils  and  storms ;  two  shots  ring  out  in 
the  dead  silence  of  the  wilderness  and  the  daunt- 


THE   LOUISIANA    REGION  17 

less  discoverer  drops  speechless  at  the  call  of 
death!  What  a  scene  for  some  immortal  limner! 
The  stern,  flushed  face  of  La  Salle,  still  illumi 
nated  with  the  light  of  a,  unique  nobility;  the  faith 
ful  friar,  Anastase,  standing  appalled  at  the 
enormity  of  the  crime  perpetrated  before  his  own 
eyes,  and  the  three  miserable  murderers  exulting 
over  and  insulting  the  unconscious  victim  of  their 
abhorrent  treachery !  If  any  statue  is  to  be  erected 
to  any  of  the  earlier  discoverers  of  the  broad 
domain  embraced  in  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  that 
honor  is  due  to  the  fearless  La  Salle.  His  was  the 
first  broad  mind  to  grasp  the  grandeur  of  the 
great  northwest  and  its  mighty  outlet  to  the  sea; 
he  it  was  that  moved  Frontenac,  Colbert  and  Louis 
XIV  to  action;  he  lived  a  life  of  toil,  peril, 
obloquy  and  privation  to  the  extreme  limit  of 
human  endurance;  he  suffered  untold  wrongs  and 
injustice  while  living,  and  gave  up  his  life  to 
demonstrate  the  priceless  value  of  America  to  his 
country  and  to  mankind !  Let  us  honor  unhonored 
greatness. 


CHAPTER   II. 
THE  LOUISIANA  DOMINION. 

PERIOD  OF  SETTLEMENT  AND  TRANSITION — FROM  1700 
TO  PEACE  TREATY  OF  1782. 

A  MOST  meritorious  historic  character,  whose 
services  lapped  over  from  the  seventeenth 
century  to  the  eighteenth,  was  the  chival 
rous  and  indefatigable  Henry  de  Tonty. 
In  all  of  La  Salle's  early  trials,  De  Tonty  of  the 
1  'Iron  Hand"  was  the  great  explorer's  most  loyal 
lieutenant  and  truest  friend.  He  was  left  in  com 
mand  of  Fort  St.  Louis  and  Fort  Broken  Heart 
at  different  periods  of  uncommon  peril.  He  ac 
companied  La  Salle  on  his  first  great  expedition 
down  the  Mississippi  and  was  ever  ready  to  follow 
or  to  lead  wherever  dangers  were  greatest  or 
savages  most  fiercely  hostile.  In  1685  and  again 
in  1689,  he  led  a  relief  party  to  aid  his  illus 
trious  chief,  from  whom  no  tidings  could  be  heard, 
traversing  in  all  more  than  six  thousand  miles  of 
swollen  rivers  and  trackless  wilderness  and  en 
countering  privations  and  perils  which  no  lan 
guage  can  make  known.  Searching  in  vain 
through  what  is  now  Arkansas,  Texas  and  Louis 
iana  for  traces  of  his  loved  and  lost  leader,  he  left 
on  the  lower  Mississippi  a  letter  carved  on  bark 
which  fourteen  years  after,  satisfied  the  doubting 

18 


THE   LOUISIANA   DOMINION          19 

Iberville  that  lie  was  really  on  the  mighty  Colbert 
River  of  La  Salle.  This  "speaking  bark,"  as  the 
Indians  reverently  called  it,  as  a  memento  of  a 
deathless  devotion,  of  an  unending  fidelity  to  a 
noble  friendship,  may  be  remembered  by  all  who 
are  losing  faith  in  human  nature  and  their  hearts 
thereby  be  abundantly  comforted.  This  precious 
epistle  ends :  '  i  It  is  a  great  sorrow  to  me  that  we 
must  return  under  the  misfortune  of  not  having 
found  you,  after  two  canoes  have  skirted  the  coast 
of  Mexico  for  thirty  leagues  and  the  coast  of 
Florida  for  twenty-rive. ' '  This  brave  explorer 
and  truthful  historian,  having  later  joined  the 
Louisiana  colonists,  was  cut  off  by  contagion  while 
prosecuting  his  dangerous  pioneer  labors.  He 
died  at  Mobile  in  1704. 

FIRST    PERMANENT    SETTLEMENTS. 

From  1682  and  after,  La  Salle,  Joutel,  Henne- 
pin  and  others,  named  the  vast  region  watered  by 
the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries,  Louisiana,  in 
honor  of  their  august  sovereign,  Louis  XIV.  But 
as  the  part  almost  wholly  west  of  the  great  river, 
covered  by  the  Purchase  Treaty  of  1803,  now  con 
cerns  us,  let  us  turn  to  small,  acorn-like  beginnings 
of  an  empire  from  which  the  giant  oaks  of  an 
unequaled  development  have  grown.  Historians 
tell  us  that  the  grand  monarque  of  France  took 
a  great  personal  interest  in  his  American  colonies. 
He  learned  through  De  Remonville,  a  close  friend 
of  La  Salle,  that  the  Louisiana  country  contained 


20         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

rich  deposits  of  iron,  lead  and  copper ;  that  hemp 
was  indigenous,  ship  timber  abundant  and  that 
cotton  and  tobacco  could  be  cultivated.  Le  Moyne 
D 'Iberville,  a  naval  officer,  who  had  gained  dis 
tinction  through  military  exploits  on  Hudson's 
Bay,  on  the  Atlantic  and  in  the  valley  of  the  St. 
Lawrence,  was  accordingly  dispatched  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  where  he  arrived  in  1699. 
Count  de  Ponchartrain,  then  Minister  of  Marine 
and  Colonies,  declares  in  his  official  correspond 
ence,  found  in  the  Margry  papers,  that  the  pur 
pose  of  the  expedition  was  to  explore,  to  fortify 
and  to  prevent  other  nations  from  getting  a  foot 
hold  in  Louisiana.  Iberville  first  went  ashore  at 
an  island  on  which  he  saw  a  mass  of  human  bones, 
and  from  this  called  it  Massacre  Island.  It  was 
what  is  now  named  Dauphin.  The  colony  next 
landed  and  began  to  erect  huts  on  Ship  Island. 
They  passed  to  the  mainland  through  Pascagoula 
Bay.  The  Biloxi  Indians  were  the  first  natives 
they  encountered.  They  ran  away  at  first,  but 
were  brought  back  by  presents  and  the  pleading  of 
an  Indian  girl.  On  February  27,  Iberville  and  his 
brother,  Bienville,  in  well-equipped  open  boats, 
went  in  search  of  the  Mississippi.  They  had  pro 
ceeded  nearly  two  hundred  miles  from  the  sea 
when  they  reached  the  Indian  village  of  Bayagou- 
las,  where  they  were  most  hospitably  entertained. 
Here  all  doubts  were  removed  about  their  being 
on  the  right  river  by  finding  a  prayer  book  with 
the  name  of  a  companion  of  La  Salle  in  it,  and, 
that  immortal  monument  of  human  affection,  the 


THE   LOUISIANA   DOMINION          21 

historic  bark  letter  of  Chevalier  De  Tonty.  For 
this  latter  precious  relic  the  Frenchmen  were 
obliged  to  present  to  an  Indian  chief  an  ax.  Iber- 
ville  returned  to  the  sea  by  way  of  the  two  lakes, 
which  he  named  Maurepas  and  Ponchartrain,  after 
two  well-known  Ministers  of  France. 

The  first  settlement  of  the  colony  was  fixed  on 
the  east  side  of  the  Bay  of  Biloxi  and  was  called 
Biloxi  (now  Ocean  Springs),  from  the  neighbor 
ing  Indian  tribe.  Twelve  pieces  of  cannon  were 
mounted  on  the  four  bastions  of  the  fort  that  was 
built.  Sauvol,  a  * l  discreet  young  man  of  merit, ' ' 
was  placed  in  command  and  Iberville  sailed  for 
France.  While  Bienville,  the  younger  brother  of 
the  latter,  was  exploring  the  surrounding  regions 
and  passing  down  the  western  channel  of  the  Mis 
sissippi,  he  met,  about  eighteen  miles  below  the 
site  of  New  Orleans,  a  British  frigate  of  twelve 
guns.  The  young  " lieutenant  of  the  king" 
promptly  and  firmly  informed  the  English  cap 
tain,  Barr,  that  the  King  of  France  had  taken 
formal  possession  of  the  waters  and  lands  adja 
cent  and  that  to  avoid  trouble  he  had  better  turn 
the  prow  of  his  ship  down  stream.  The  cautious 
Englishman  heeded  the  advice  of  the  nervy  young 
Frenchman  and  ever  since  this  particular  bend  in 
the  river  has  been  known  by  the  name  of  the  Eng 
lish  Turn.  In  December,  Iberville  returned  with 
two  large  ships,  bringing  the  news  that  Sauvol 
had  been  made  governor  of  Louisiana,  Bien 
ville  lieutenant-governor,  and  Boisbriant,  major  of 
the  fort..  Leseuer,  the  geologist,  and  the  brave  St. 


22         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

Denis  came  over  at  this  time.  Guided  by  the  In 
dians,  who  were  still  friendly,  Iberville  selected 
some  high  ground  fifty-four  miles  from  the  sea 
for  a  fort  and  town,  which  he  named  Rosalie,  from 
the  baptismal  name  of  the  Countess  of  Ponchar- 
train.  The  grim  walls  of  this  fort  are  still  exist 
ing,  close  by  Natchez,  the  future  capital.  While 
Bienville,  St.  Denis  and  Leseuer  were  making 
extensive  explorations,  the  geologist  accomplished 
much  by  ascending  the  ' i  St.  Louis ' '  to  the  falls  of 
St.  Anthony ;  thence  up  St.  Peters  Elver  one  hun 
dred  and  thirty  miles  and  following  up  a  stream 
which  he  named  Green  River  from  the  color  of  its 
waters,  built  a  small  fort  which  he  called  Fort 
Thuillier,  in  honor  of  a  patron.  Here  Leseuer 
passed  the  winter  and  in  the  spring,  from  mines 
in  what  is  now  Minnesota,  collected  quantities  of 
ore  and  ochre  which  he  carried  to  Biloxi  in  April, 
1701,  and  thence  to  France.  He  left  the  most  of 
his  men  at  the  fort  to  claim  possession  of  the 
country.  Upon  the  early  death  of  Sauvol,  Bien 
ville  removed  his  headquarters  to  Biloxi,  and  from 
there  to  the  west  side  of  Mobile  River.  Dauphin 
Island  became  a  fleet  station  of  some  importance. 

Spain  now  being  at  war  with  England,  Bien 
ville  sent  men  and  munitions  of  war  to  the  Span 
iards  at  Pensacola  and  St.  Augustine. 

The  garrison  that  Leseuer  had  left  at  Fort 
Thuillier,  among  the  Sioux  Indians,  were  obliged 
to  abandon  their  outpost  in  March,  1704,  and 
return  to  Mobile. 

The  English  of  the  Atlantic  coast  retaliated  for 


THE   LOUISIANA    DOMINION         23 

the  succor  sent  to  the  Spaniards,  by  stirring  up 
and  inciting  the  Alibamons  and  other  Indians  to 
attack  the  French.  Thus  began  the  wars  and  trou 
bles  with  the  Indians,  which  ended  only  with  the 
Natchez  war  of  extermination.  During  the  year 
1704  a  fifty-gun  ship  arrived  from  France  with 
much-needed  provisions,  military  supplies  and 
seventy-five  soldiers.  Five  priests  from  the  diocese 
of  Quebec,  two  gray  nuns  for  the  hospital  and 
twenty-three  young  women  of  good  character, 
formed  the  most  interesting  part  of  this  beneficent 
consignment.  The  homesick  colonists  lost  no  time 
in  making  wives  of  the  marriageable  part  of  the 
passenger  list.  These  poor  but  modest  and  pretty 
girls  made  good  wives,  except  that  they  rebelled 
against  the  coarse  Indian  cornmeal  fare  of  the 
colony.  The  first  white  child  born  in  Louisiana 
was  called  Jean  Francois  Le  Camp.  Military 
duties  and  sickness  detained  the  courageous 
founder  of  the  colony  in  France  for  two  years. 
Iberville  unfortunately  died  of  yellow  fever  in  the-, 
line  of  duty  as  a  soldier,  July  9,  1706.  He  labored' 
loyally  to  advance  the  interests  of  his  colony  and' 
country.  The  first  period,  which  ends  with  1712. 
was  one  of  much  sickness,  many  explorations,  little 
local  growth. 

i 

THE    ADVENT    OF    ANTONY    CKOZAT. 

The  colony  of  Louisiana  having  thus  far  proven 
not  a  source  of  profit  or  revenue,  but  a  continuing 
drain  and  expense,  the  French  government  sent 


24         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

Diron  d  'Artaguette  to  report  on  condition  and 
remedies.  As  a  result,  Antony  Crozat,  secretary 
of  the  king's  household,  was  given  for  the  period 
of  fifteen  years  a  complete  monopoly  of  the  trade 
and  commerce  of  Louisiana,  whose  limits  were  to 
be  fixed  in  large  measure  by  the  business  interests 
and  discretion  of  the  grantee. 

When  Crozat  took  charge  in  1713,  there  was  a 
population  of  three  hundred  and  eighty  persons, 
counting  twenty  negroes,  and  one  hundred  sol 
diers,  the  latter  doubled  in  efficiency  by  seventy- 
five  seasoned  Canadian  volunteers.  These  inhab 
itants  and  soldiers  were  scattered  among  the  five 
forts  at  Biloxi,  Mobile,  Dauphin,  and  Ship  Island 
and  at  Natchez  or  Fort  Rosalie.  Crozat  brought 
over  his  own  governors,  Cadillac  and  Epenay.  He 
had  absolute  free  trade  with  France,  but  was  un 
able  to  land  his  goods  or  carry  on  trade  with 
Spanish  posts  by  reason  of  his  own  narrow  trade 
restrictions.  The  resolute  St.  Denis  was  not  able 
establish  neighborly  relations  with  the  Span- 
^iards  near  the  Mexican  border.  Governor  Cadillac 
'went  gold  hunting  and  came  back  empty-handed. 
When  ores  and  minerals  were  found  no  one  seemed 
tn  understand  the  art  of  profitable  mining.  Agri 
culture  was  neglected.  There  was  not  industry 
ar}i  energy  enough  to  carry  on  even  the  trade  in 
peltries  with  success. 

The  Indians  were  treated  with  so  little  tact  and 
such  scant  justice  that  enmities  were  aroused  that 
endured  for  a  generation.  Lieutenant-Governor 
Bienville,  the  only  leader  of  pioneer  experience, 


THE   LOUISIANA   DOMINION          25 

was  hampered,  overruled  and  sent  on  ruinously 
hazardous  forays  against  treacherous  savages. 

At  the  end  of  five  years  of  failure,  Crozat  aban 
doned  his  fifteen-year  grant  or  monopoly  and  re 
turned  to  the  more  congenial  atmosphere  of  Paris. 
He  had  lost  a  good-sized  fortune  in  his  experiment 
and  had  caused  a  net  increase  of  less  than  three 
hundred  inhabitants  of  all  classes,  colors  and  de 
scriptions.  Not  a  brilliant  exhibit,  truly,  for  a 
man  heralded  as  a  great  financier  and  still  indis 
criminately  called  a  great  merchant  or  great 
banker!  The  historic  truth  is  that  the  successful 
courtier  of  Versailles  was  out  of  his  element 
among  savages  and  backwoodsmen.  The  luxuries 
of  a  palace  could  not  be  profitably  exchanged  for 
pioneer  hardships  and  privations.  Compared  with 
successful  colonizers  like  William  Penn  and  the 
second  Lord  Baltimore  or  with  great  fur  traders 
like  John  Jacob  Astor,  Antony  Crozat  was  a  babe 
at  the  bottle. 

COMPANY  OF   THE   WEST  —  JOHN   LAW. 

Under  the  newly  chartered  Company  of  the 
West,  which  succeeded  to  more  than  all  the  priv 
ileges  and  monopolies  of  the  Crozat  charter,  Bien- 
ville  was  restored  to  power  as  governor.  Boisbri- 
ant  was  given  command  over  the  "Illinois  dis 
trict,"  which  was  brought  under  the  government 
of  Louisiana. 

The  years  1718-19  were  years  of  activity.  In 
February,  1718,  Bienville,  with  fifty  men,  began  to 


26         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

clear  the  ground  and  found  the  city  which  he  named 
New  Orleans,  after  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  then  re 
gent  of  France.  The  transfer  of  the  company's 
stores  from  Biloxi  to  New  Orleans  took  place  in 
June,  1722.  Du  Pratz  and  La  Harpe  were  recent 
valuable  accessions  to  the  colony.  The  new  com 
pany  laid  claim  to  all  of  Texas,  based  on  the  ex 
plorations  or  settlements  of  La  Salle,  Bienville 
and  St.  Denis.  But  after  La  Harpe 's  unsuccessful 
attempt  on  St.  Bernard,  Texas  was  abandoned  by 
the  French.  In  June,  1719,  the  first  direful  car 
goes  of  five  hundred  slaves  were  brought  in  on 
two  vessels  arriving  from  the  coast  of  Guinea. 
About  this  time  large  grants  of  land  were  given 
to  influential  families  of  France.  The  notorious 
financial  speculator  and  stock  gambler,  John  Law, 
President  of  the  new  company,  was  granted  twelve 
square  miles  of  land  on  the  Arkansas  River.  For 
settlers  he  sent  over  hundreds  of  honest  Germans 
and  fifteen  hundred  other  immigrants  not  so 
honest.  Law's  scheme  was  the  now  abandoned 
paper  money  inflation  scheme,  coupled  with  the 
issuing  and  prolonged  issuing  or  watering  of  stock 
or  paper  promises,  without  limit  and  without  end. 
Law  escaped  to  Italy  when  the  crash  came,  after 
his  carriage  had  been  broken  into  pieces  in  Paris 
by  his  deluded  victims.  The  curse  of  a  worthless 
medium  of  exchange  was  followed  by  a  more 
dreadful  drawback  to  prosperity,  the  Natchez 
Indian  wars,  which  reached  a  horrible  culmination 
in  the  general  massacres  of  1729.  The  merciless 
slaughter  of  five  hundred  men,  women  and  chil- 


THE   LOUISIANA   DOMINION         27 

dren,  at  the  Mississippi,  Yazoo,  Washita  and  other 
settlements,  calls  only  for  pitying  sympathy  and 
commiseration.  The  fiendish  atrocities  and  un 
speakable  cruelties  of  the  Natchez  savages  are  too 
revolting  to  dwell  upon,  too  awful  to  relate.  It  is 
not  strange  that  Bienville,  the  veteran  Indian 
fighter  and  "father  of  the  colony,"  after  having 
been  twice  defeated  by  the  same  tribe,  should  be 
willing  to  retire  at  sixty-two  from  the  field  of  such 
fruitless  toil  and  inglorious  conflict,  Fort  Orleans, 
whose  construction  was  begun  by  Burgrnont  in 
1721,  was  totally  destroyed  and  its  occupants  mas 
sacred  in  1724.  This  was  situated  on  an  island 
near  the  mouth  of  the  Missouri  River.  In  1727  the 
capable  Governor  Perier  began  the  levee  system 
by  constructing  a  levee  thirty-six  miles  in  length, 
which  included  New  Orleans.  But  the  general 
method  was  faulty  where  there  was  so  little  self- 
government.  Everything  was  determined  in 
France. 

During  the  Mississippi  bubble  period,  the  sick 
were  often  without  medicines  and  some  settlers 
perished  from  hunger.  Provisions  were  secured 
from  France,  from  Spanish  forts,  from  the  In 
dians;  but  not  in  sufficient  quantities  from  the 
soil.  A  change  came  in  April,  1732,  when  the 
John  Law  monopoly  ended  by  the  King  of  France 
proclaiming  that  the  Province  of  Louisiana  was 
free  and  open  to  trade  and  commerce  with  equal 
privileges  to  all  his  subjects.  -From  1733  to  1762 
was  a  comparatively  uneventful  period  of  gradual 
and  peaceful  progress.  In  1750  the  population 


28         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

increased  to  seven  thousand,  four  thousand  being 
white. 

In  1751  the  Jesuit  missionaries  introduced  the 
sugar  cane  from  St.  Domingo  and  also  some  blacks 
who  understood  the  art  of  sugar  making.  M. 
Dubreuil  built  the  first  sugar  mill  on  what  is  now 
Esplanade  avenue.  About  1756  began  the  arrival 
of  the  Acadians,  whom  Longfellow  has  since  im 
mortalized,  who  were  driven  out  of  Nova  Scotia 
by  arbitrary  force.  They  settled  in  Baltimore  and 
in  the  western  part  of  the  present  State  of  Louisi 
ana  and  their  descendants  have  made  good  citizens. 

SPANISH  POSSESSION— O'REILLY. 

By  the  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau  of  November  3, 

1762,  Louis  XV  transferred  tox  Spain  the  whole 
territory  of  Louisiana  lying  west  of  the  Mississippi 
River,  including  New  Orleans.     On  February  10, 

1763,  the  French  King  agreed  at  Paris  to  grant 
to  England  all  this  territory  lying  east  of  the  Mis 
sissippi,  except  New  Orleans.    A  dull  voluptuary, 
such  as  Louis  XV,  had  hardly  manly  sentiment 
enough  to  feel  any  deep  regret  over  the  loss  of  col 
onists  that  had  not  proven  profitable  and  who  re 
quired  defense.    He  had  in  two  years  surrendered 
every  foot  of  French  territory  on  the  American 
continent.     The  French  lacked  the  Anglo-Saxon 
instinct  for  successful  colonization.    But  now  when 
there  were  signs  of  a  larger  prosperity,  these  col 
onists  were  suddenly  cast  off  by  the  parent  coun 
try.    Not  until  1766  was  the  first  Spanish  gover 
nor,  Ulloa,  sent  out  to  assume  control.    Bringing 


THE   LOUISIANA    DOMINION         29 

out  but  ninety  soldiers  with  him,  he  found  it  pru 
dent,  in  view  of  the  state  of  feeling,  to  proceed 
slowly  and  depart  discreetly  for  Havana, 

After  an  unusual  delay,  Lieutenant-General 
O'Reilly  took  firm  and  formal  possession  of  the 
province  in  1769  as  governor  and  captain  general. 
He  landed  on  the  levee  four  thousand  soldiers— 
about  three  times  the  force  that  the  colony  could 
command.  That  a  haughty  power  like  Spain 
would  not  permit  its  authority  to  be  defied,  should 
have  been  anticipated.  But  O'Reilly's  treacher 
ously  base  and  despotically  cruel  course  of  action 
ended  in  a  piece  of  infamous  brutality;  in  cow 
ardly  acts  of  needless  butchery. 

The  chief  men  who  had  been  active  in  manifest 
ing  their  loyalty  to  France  were  lulled  into  a  feel 
ing  of  security  by  an  outward  exhibition  of  a 
courteous  and  conciliatory  temper  and  by  proffers 
of  hospitality.  No  sooner  had  Villeare,  a  worthy 
planter,  passed  in  at  the  guarded  gate,  than  he 
was  arrested,  forced  on  board  a  Spanish  man-of- 
war  and  there  brutally  killed  by  a  guard  for  the 
grime  of  insisting  upon  speaking  to  his  grief- 
stricken  wife.  La  Freniere,  the  eloquent  lawyer; 
Marquis  and  De  Noyant,  ranking  officers  of  the 
colony  troops;  Joseph  Milhet  and  Caresse,  lead 
ing  merchants,  were  railroaded  through  the  trav 
esty  of  a  trial;  then  led  out  and  shot  in  the  most 
public  square.  Not  alone  the  kindred  of  the  doomed 
men  but  the  inhabitants  generally  fled  from  the 
scene  and  city,  paralyzed  with  horror! 

Some  of  the  six  victims  had  seen  their  sires 


30         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

butchered  in  the  ghastly  massacres  of  the  Natchez 
savages ;  their  children  were  now  asked  in  turn  to 
behold  their  fathers  put  to  death  by  a  Spanish 
savage  whose  hands  were  to  be  stained  by  an  un 
forgivable  and  inhuman  atrocity.  Such  crimes  are 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  chastisements  of  human 
though  not  of  divine  justice. 

Six  other  prominent  men  were  found  guilty  of  a 
disinclination  to  become  Spanish  subjects,  on  the 
deposition  of  a  single  witness;  were  transported 
to  Cuba  and  imprisoned  for  various  terms  in  the 
dungeons  of  Morro  Castle.  An  immediate  change 
in  the  laws  of  their  colony  was  another  exaction 
which  the  terrified  inhabitants  had  to  bear.  The 
Spanish  language  was  made  the  official  language 
and  was  used  in  courts,  schools  and  churches. 
Trade  restrictions  of  the  narrowest  nature  were 
imposed.  Unzaga  and  the  Marquis  de  la  Torre 
succeeded  the  tyrannical  O'Reilly  as  governors. 
Louisiana  was  detached  from  the  bishopric  of  Que 
bec  and  annexed  to  that  of  Havana,  The  mild  ad 
ministration  of  Governor  General  Unzaga  contrib 
uted  much  to  heal  the  wounds  of  the  past.  He 
showed  a  disposition  to  relax  the  laws  and  regu 
lations  to  favor  a  large  contraband  trade  with  the 
struggling  American  colonies  which  caused  New 
Orleans  to  advance  its  commercial  importance  ma 
terially  from  1772  to  the  close  of  the  revolution. 
The  renowned  Governor  General  de  Galvez,  who 
assumed  office  January  1,  1777,  continued  and 
broadened  the  friendly  policy  of  his  predecessors 
toward  the  American  colonies. 


THE   LOUISIANA   DOMINION          31 

ST.  LOUIS  FOUNDED. 

Turning  now  to  other  parts  of  the  Purchase  ter 
ritory,  we  find  that  Village  du  Cote,  now  St. 
Charles,  on  the  Missouri  River,  was  the  first 
village  built  west  of  the  Mississippi  and  north  of 
the  Arkansas.  The  date  of  this  settlement  was 
1762.  On  the  15th  of  February,  1764,  St.  Louis  was 
founded  by  Father  Laclede  and  named  after  the 
canonized  Louis  IX  of  France;  not  after  Louis 
XV,  who  was  a  somewhat  soiled  saint.  The  Louis 
iana  Fur  Company,  which  the  enterprising  friar 
represented,  had  the  exclusive  right  to  trade  with 
the  Missouri  River  Indians.  Antoine  Maxent  was 
the  active  trading  agent  of  the  company.  Auguste 
Chouteau  took  charge  of  the  building  operations, 
which  he  carried  forward  with  energy.  The  ar 
rival  of  the  French  commander,  St.  Ange  de  Belle- 
rive,  with  fifty  men,  in  July,  1765,  made  St.  Louis 
the  future  capital  of  upper  Louisiana,  It  was 
while  on  a  visit  to  this  hospitable  French  officer, 
that  the  great  chief  and  warrior,  Pontiac,  was 
killed  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  by  a  Kas- 
kaskia  Indian  enemy. 

In  the  winter  of  1770-71,  Don  Pedro  Piernas  was 
sent  by  the  new  Spanish  governor  at  New  Orleans 
to  take  civil  and  military  command.  St.  Louis 
prospered  under  his  wise  and  conservative  policy. 
After  narrowly  escaping  destruction  from  a  dan 
gerous  British  and  Indian  plot  in  1780,  the  peace 
of  1783  found  the  town  flourishing  under  the  in 
telligent  administration  of  Governor  Cruzat.  Re- 


32         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

ferring  to  a  date  four  years  prior,  the  historian 
Bancroft  says: 

' '  The  Spanish  town  of  St.  Louis  was  fast  rising 
into  importance  as  the  center  of  the  fur  trade  with 
the  Indian  nations  on  the  Missouri/' 

THE    VICTOEIOUS    GALVEZ. 

Returning  to  lower  Louisiana,  it  is  refreshing 
to  find  a  brave  and  brilliant  soldier  still  conducting 
its  affairs.  No  sooner  had  the  news  of  a  declara 
tion  of  war  by  Spain  against  Great  Britain  been 
received  at  New  Orleans,  than  Governor  Galvez 
invested  and  captured  Fort  Bute,  Baton  Rouge 
and  Fort  Panmure.  Sharing  in  these  daring  ex 
ploits  were  one  hundred  Americans  and  Canadians 
who  took  the  required  oath  of  allegiance  and  per 
manently  settled  in  Louisiana.  The  victories  of 
Galvez  and  his  later  capture  of  Pensacola  seem  to 
have  had  an  influence  on  the  action  of  the  Amer 
ican  Congress.  That  body  was  guilty  of  vacilla 
tion  and  made  the  bad  break  of  instructing  its  Min 
ister  to  Spain  in  1781,  John  Jay,  to  abandon  the 
free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  below  thirty-one 
degrees  of  north  latitude,  provided  Spain  would 
form  an  alliance  with  the  United  States  and  rec 
ognize  their  independence.  Jay  submitted  a  draft 
of  a  treaty  providing  that  the  foregoing  proposal 
or  clause  should  be  void  if  the  alliance  was  post 
poned  to  a  general  peace.  The  foresight  of  Min 
ister  Jay,  coupled  with  the  habitual  dilatoriness  of 
Spanish  officials,  probably  kept  us  from  being  sub 
merged  in  a  sea  of  troubles. 


THE   LOUISIANA   DOMINION         33 

CLARK,  BOONE,   SEVIER,  ROBERTSON. 

The  strong  men  who  pushed  American  civiliza 
tion  toward  and  to  the  Mississippi  must  not  be  for 
gotten.  The  wielders  of  the  ax  and  the  rifle;  the 
builders  of  log  cabins  and  of  settlements;  the 
founders  of  towns  and  of  states;  these  are  the 
pioneers  who  fell  the  forests  and  hew  the  west 
ward  way.  The  greatest  of  these  backwoods  war 
riors  and  middle  West  winners  was  George  Rog 
ers  Clark.  He  brought  about  the  organization  of 
Kentucky  as  a  county  of  Virginia;  in  1777,  he 
entered  upon  the  conquest  of  Illinois,  establishing 
a  military  post  opposite  Louisville,  capturing  Kas- 
kaskia,,  Vincennes,  and  relieving  Cahokia  in  1780 
from  a  desperate  attack  of  British  and  Indians, 
and  rendering  other  splendid  services  of  far-reach 
ing  importance. 

From  the  commencement  of  Daniel  Boone's  ef 
fectual  pioneer  work  in  Kentucky  in  1772,  he  ad 
vanced  his  lines,  held  his  outposts  and  moved  to 
ward  the  Mississippi  as  his  destination.  Sevier 
and  Robertson  extended  North  Carolina  to  the 
Great  River  boundary  by  adding  Tennessee  and 
taught  thousands  to  be  resolute  and  brave  by  their 
example.  These  and  a  hundred  fameless,  though 
noble  heroes,  in  standing  bravely  by  their  posts  of 
duty  and  their  outposts  of  danger  in  the  then  far 
West,  made  the  amazing  addition  to  our  public  do 
minion  possible,  through  the  great  peace  treaty 
with  England  of  1783. 


CHAPTER   III. 

REACHING  TO  THE  MISSISSIPPI. 

GEE  AT    TEEATIES    OF    1782-3  —  AVHO    MADE    THEM. 

THE  definitive  treaty  of  peace  with  Great 
Britain,   signed  at   Paris,   September  3, 
1783,  brought  a  happy  and  glorious  end 
ing  to  the  seven  years '  war  for  American 
independence.    The  second  article  of  that  mem 
orable  treaty  made  the  middle  of  the  northern  lakes 
and  the  central  channel  of  the  Mississippi  River 
our  new  general  lines  of  boundary,  north  and  west. 
Article  eight  reads :    ' '  The  navigation  of  the  River 
Mississippi,  from  its  source  to  the  ocean,  shall  for 
ever  remain  free  and  open  to  the  subjects  of  Great 
Britain  and  the  citizens  of  the  United  States." 

In  confirming  by  a  solemn  convention  the  some 
what  shadowy  colonial  claims  to  the  vast  Indian 
territory  lying  between  the  Alleghenies  and  the 
Mississippi,  the  area  of  the  thirteen  original  col 
onies  was  at  once  doubled.  What  are  now  the 
prosperous  States  of  Illinois,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Mich 
igan,  Wisconsin,  Minnesota  in  part,  Kentucky, 
Tennessee,  Mississippi  and  Alabama,  are  the  fruit 
ful  political  offspring  of  this  most  beneficent 
treaty.  In  its  large  immediate  results— peace  and 
the  creation  of  a  nation— and  in  its  never-ending 
future  influence,  this  is  one  of  the  two  greatest 

34 


TO    THE   MISSISSIPPI  35 

American  treaties.  Without  it  the  centennial  of 
the  treaty  of  twenty  years  later,  that  of  the  Louis 
iana  Purchase  of  1803,  would  not  so  soon,  if  at  all, 
be  celebrated. 

What  were  the  causes  and  events,  what  and  by 
whom  the  exertions  and  utterances  that  led  up  to 
this  blessed  compact  of  peace  and  freedom!  Who 
were  the  benefactors  of  America  that  brought 
about  the  partition  of  the  British  empire  and  the 
building  of  an  American  empire  that  has  become 
greater? 

Primarily  we  owe  the  peace  of  freedom  to  the 
toils  and  military  successes  of  Washington, 
Greene,  Wayne,  Knox,  Schuyler  and  deserving 
others.  Before  the  battle  of  Yorktown,  peace  with 
independence  was  never  possible.  To  gather  the 
fruits  and  garner  the  harvests  from  that  benign 
victory,  the  Franklins  were  needed  in  the  field  of 
foreign  diplomacy.  Long  before  the  sun  of  tran 
quillity  had  dawned,  Benjamin  Franklin's  benig 
nant  face  and  penetrating,  spectacled  eyes,  illumi 
nated  the  scene.  Arriving  in  Paris  in  December, 
1776,  Franklin  with  his  colleagues,  Silas  Deane 
and  Arthur  Lee,  was  able  to  secure  secret  aid  from 
France  and  from  individual  sympathizers  in  our 
struggle  for  liberty.  As  early  as  February  6, 
1778,  he  negotiated  with  our  first  and  most  gener 
ous  foreign  friend,  Vergennes,  two  very  important 
treaties;  one  of  amity  and  commerce,  the  other  of 
alliance. 

Article  two  of  the  latter  reads :  ' '  The  essential 
and  direct  end  of  the  present  defensive  alliance  is 


36         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

to  maintain  effectually  the  liberty,  sovereignty  and 
independence  absolute  and  unlimited,  of  the  United 
States,  as  well  in  matters  of  government  as  of  com 
merce.  ' ' 

This  direct  and  comprehensive  affirmation  is  re 
peated  in  article  seven  and  strengthened  by  the 
further  guaranty  that  "  their  possessions,  and  the 
additions  or  conquests  that  their  confederation  may 
obtain  during  the  war,  from  any  of  the  dominions 
now  or  heretofore  possessed  by  Great  Britain  in 
North  America."  *  *  *  "Shall  be  fixed  and 
secured  to  the  said  States,  at  the  moment  of  the 
cessation  of  their  present  war  with  England. " 

What  amazing  foresight!  As  if  both  negoti 
ators  had  the  peace  treaty  of  five  years  later  in 
mind. 

FKANKLIN,  JAY  AND  ADAMS. 

The  dark  valley  of  tribulation,  death  and  Valley 
Forge  being  passed,  Livingston  and  other  wise 
men  of  the  West  asked  Dr.  Franklin  to  heal  the 
wounds  of  war  and  bring  about  a  reconciliation  be 
tween  the  victors  and  the  vanquished.  Franklin 
saw  that  the  supreme  hour  and  opportunity  of  his 
life  had  come.  Crowned  with  the  wisdom  of  sev 
enty-seven  years,  he  gathered  in  and  utilized  all 
the  agencies  and  resources  of  his  intellect,  influ 
ence,  popularity  and  power.  He  renewed  his  cor 
respondence  with  every  public  character,  philos 
opher  and  man  of  science  he  ever  knew,  in  France 
or  England.  The  embracing  and  kissing  of  Vol 
taire  before  the  French  Academy  of  Science;  the 


TO    THE   MISSISSIPPI  37 

assiduous  cultivation  of  Count  de  Vergennes  and 
bis  royal  master  and  mistress;  his  good-natured 
submission  to  the  annoyance  of  being  followed  by 
crowds  upon  the  streets,  and  even  his  harmless 
gallantries  with  Madame  Helvetius  and  other  an 
cient  and  antique  dames,  were  attentions  and  com 
placencies  bestowed  that  he  might  promote  his 
country's  welfare  more. 

When  everything  a  la  Franklin  in  Paris  be 
came  at  once  a  la  mode,  this  wise  philosopher  was 
ripe  to  achieve  triumphs  in  peace  more  enduring 
and  no  less  renowned  than  those  of  war.  He  wrote 
to  John  Jay,  who  was  vainly  trying  to  borrow 
money  and  to  make  a  treaty  with  Spain,  that 
his  aid  in  Paris  would  be  of  infinite  value.  Jay 
tried  to  borrow  five  million  dollars  and  succeeded 
in  borrowing  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand  dol 
lars.  Jay  reached  Paris,  June  23,  which  was  nine 
ty-three  days  before  the  preliminary  treaty  of 
peace  was  concluded.  Franklin  begged  John 
Adams,  whose  two  treaties  had  gained  him  much 
glory  in  Holland  and  at  home,  to  reinforce  Jay 
and  himself  in  France,  but  Adams  tarried  near 
the  scene  of  his  triumphs  and  did  not  reach  Paris 
until  October  26,  1782,  just  thirty-four  days  before 
the  first  of  the  two  identical  treaties  was  signed. 


FRANKLIN'S  GREAT  WORK. 


For  several  months  the  strenuous  Franklin  car 
ried  on  his  peace-making  unaided.  While  in 
structed  by  his  Government  to  make  a  treaty  with 


38         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

Great  Britain,  he  could  find  no  agents  of  England 
with  whom  to  confer.  Lord  Stormont,  the  British 
ambassador  in  Paris,  had  insulted  him  a  few  years 
before  by  replying  to  a  respectful  letter  that, ' '  The 
king's  ministers  receive  no  applications  from  reb 
els,  unless  they  have  come  to  implore  his  majesty's 
clemency."  As  early  as  June,  1781,  David  Hart 
ley,  afterwards  British  signer  of  the  definitive 
treaty,  had  asked  his  friend  Franklin  to  procure  for 
him  a  passport  from  the  Count  Vergennes  to  enable 
him  to  visit  Paris.  In  April,  1782,  our  adroit 
diplomatist  succeeded  in  getting  his  old  friend 
Kichard  Oswald  appointed  by  Lord  Shelburne, 
home  and  colonial  secretary,  to  begin  negotiations 
for  peace.  Franklin  presented  Oswald  to  Ver 
gennes  and  shrewdly  remained  during  the  entire 
conference.  The  same  presentation  took  place 
when  Foreign  Secretary  Fox  sent  over  Thomas 
Grenville  to  negotiate  a  treaty  between  France  and 
England,  Franklin  being  present  at  the  first  and 
at  repeated  conferences.  Finding  Grenville  less 
pliable  than  Oswald,  the  American,  more  cunning 
than  the  British  Fox,  succeeded  in  getting  Oswald 
appointed  the  chief  negotiator  of  the  British  gov 
ernment. 

With  the  English  agents  and  their  assistants 
largely  of  his  own  selection  and  with  Vergennes 
in  as  confidential  relations  with  him  as  the  chief 
minister  of  another  government  could  honorably 
be,  our  first  and  greatest  diplomatist  was  prepared 
to  proceed  to  serious  conclusions.  Again  writing 
Jay  to  render  himself  in  Paris  as  soon  as  possible, 


TO  *THE   MISSISSIPPI  39 

he  presented  his  colleague  the  day  after  his  arrival, 
to  Yergennes,  who  received  him  very  cordially. 
This  pure  patriot  and  methodical  and  upright  man, 
curbed  somewhat  the  impetuous  Franklin,  who, 
like  other  great  men,  had  a  dislike  for  delays  and 
a  distaste  for  details.  Jay  was  cautious,  high- 
toned,  firm  and  precise. 

Keeping  in  view  the  time  employed  and  labor 
bestowed,  Franklin  and  Jay  were  the  two  chief 
American  negotiators.  Mr.  Adams  did  not  visit 
his  colleague  Franklin,  who  was  ill,  until  three 
days  after  his  arrival.  He  did  not  pay  his  respects 
to  the  French  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  who  in 
a  large  sense  held  the  destinies  of  America  in  his 
hands,  until  November  10,  just  fifteen  days  after 
he  reached  Paris.  The  magnanimous  Vergennes, 
instead  of  resenting  the  slight,  invited  Adams  to 
dine  on  the  day  that  he  called,  gave  him  the  seat 
of  honor  at  the  table  and  in  other  ways  treated 
him  with  uncommon  respect. 

Our  tardy  commissioner  continued  to  accept  the 
hospitalities  of  the  generous  minister,  which  he  re 
warded  by  giving  currency  to  the  suspicion  that 
Vergennes  had  betrayed  a  cause  to  which  he  had 
given  and  was  giving  ultimate  success  in  both  war 
and  peace. 

As  an  honorable  peace  is  usually  brought  about 
by  nations  at  war  through  honorable  men,  it  seems 
fitting  to  discuss  the  high  representatives  of 
France,  England  and  America  who  directed  and 
wisely  ended  this  great  negotiation.  Of  these 
epoch-making  men  our  own  rare  Ben  Franklin 


40         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

should  undoubtedly  be  ranked  first.  He  had  been 
for  half  a  lifetime  the  agent  abroad  of  one,  three, 
or  all,  the  American  colonies.  Franklin  knew  both 
Europe  and  America.  He  had  courageously  faced 
the  enemies  of  his  country,  headed  by  Wedderburn 
and  others,  before  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Com 
mons  ;  and  he  had  grappled  its  friends  to  his  heart 
with  arms  of  tenderness  and  strength. 

France  received  him  as  the  conqueror  of  the 
lightning  and  of  tyrants.  Europe  revered  him  as 
the  greatest  living  scientist,  philosopher  and  sage. 
He  had  reached  the  full  maturity  of  wordly  wis 
dom.  He  had  the  tact  of  a  Metternich  and  the 
adroitness  of  a  Talleyrand.  Is  it  strange  then  that 
as  a  cat  plays  with  a  captured  mouse,  he  should 
toss  about  and  dominate  at  will,  Oswald,  Hartley, 
Grenville,  Fitzherbert,  Strachey  and  all  the  under 
strappers  of  the  British  foreign  office?  In  short, 
Franklin  got  into  the  two  treaties  the  Mississippi, 
the  fisheries  and  all  he  was  instructed  to  get  in  and 
with  Oswald's  consent,  would  have  added  Canada, 
if  Jay  and  Adams  had  supported  him  in  a  claim  so 
savoring  of  audacity. 

COUNT    DE    VERGENNES. 

As  the  personal  equation  can  never  be  eliminated 
from  affairs  of  government,  the  wise,  patient,  well- 
poised  Vergennes  is  the  next  most  potent  person 
ality  to  consider.  In  1782-3,  Vergennes  was  France 
and  Prance  was  Vergennes.  As  strong  men  ad 
mire  strength  in  others,  this  statesman's  love  of 


TO    THE   MISSISSIPPI  41 

Franklin  and  his  cause  and  desire  to  cripple  Eng 
land  at  the  opportune  time,  led  him  to  form  the 
two  generous  treaties  of  amity  and  alliance  in 
1778;  to  advance  to  the  struggling  colonies  40,- 
000,000  francs ;  to  send  over  to  our  aid  De  Grasse, 
Eochambeau  and  about  15,000  sailors  and  soldiers ; 
to  recognize  our  sovereignty  and  independence 
earliest,  and  when  triumph  came  after  the  com 
bined  French  and  American  assaults  on  Yorktown, 
to  take  the  first  firm  steps  towards  a  permanent 
peace.  Vergennes  agreed  to  make  and  did  make 
a  peace  treaty  of  even  date  with  Great  Britain, 
keeping  pace  with  our  own  negotiations,  even  after 
he  was  coolly  informed  that  a  secret  treaty  was 
about  to  be  sent  to  America,  the  terms  of  which 
were  to  be  withheld  from  him.  On  this  disregard 
of  instructions  from  the  American  Government 
and  impeachment  of  his  own  good  faith,  Ver 
gennes'  wounded  feelings  find  dignified  utterance 
in  a  note  to  Franklin.  In  his  reply,  although  ex 
cusing  a  breach  of  diplomatic  procedure  which  he 
himself  opposed,  our  cunning  moralist  rises  to  an 
elevation  of  diction  and  graceful  speech  of  unsur 
passable  felicities.  Yet  this  slight  did  not  deter 
the  forgiving  French  minister  from  supporting  the 
Mississippi  boundary,  the  fisheries  and  all  other 
controverted  claims  of  both  the  preliminary  and 
final  treaty. 

In  the  clearer  historic  light  of  to-day,  the  sus 
picions  of  Adams  and  Jay  must  give  way  to  facts. 
An  unbroken  series  of  unmistakable  acts,  events 
and  results  are  worth  a  thousand  "  suspicions. " 


42         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

The  end  crowns  all.  The  truth  is,  that  until  the  day 
of  his  death,  in  1787,  Vergennes  was  as  true  to  this 
Country  as  his  duty  to  his  own  kin-g  and  country 
permitted  him  to  be.  If  Vergennes  sold  us  out,  we, 
not  England  or  Spain,  got  the  profits  of  the  sale. 
If  with  his  alleged  duplicity  we  got  all  we  asked 
for,  what  more  could  we  have  gotten  if  he  had  been 
blunt  and  sincere? 

In  the  accusations  against  Rear  Admiral  Schley 
we  seem  to  have  the  Vergennes  case  over  again. 
Measured  by  triumphant  results,  the  French  diplo 
matist  and  the  American  hero  each  did  the  best 
possible.  But  against  each  it  is  charged  that  if 
he  had  not  done  this,  that  or  the  other  thing,  re 
sults  would  have  been  better  than  the  best  possible. 
Vergennes  was  a  minister  of  peace  who  may  sleep 
calmly  amid  the  enduring  fragrance  and  repose  of 
his  many  peace-restoring  treaties.* 

LORD  SHELBUKNE. 

This  British  statesman  was  the  friend  of  Amer 
ica  when  America  needed  friends  most.  For  this, 
the  implacable  George  III  once  said  that  he  dis 
liked  him  as  much  as  he  did  Alderman  Wilkes.  In 
February,  1782,  Shelburne  voted  with  the  oppo- 

*  Since  giving  expression  to  this  favorable  view  of  Ver 
gennes,  I  find  my  high  estimate  is  more  than  sustained  by 
Henri  Doniol  in  his  Histoire  De  La  Participation  De  La 
France  A  UEtablissement  Des  Etats-Unis  D'Amcrique.  This 
monumental  work,  published  by  authority  of  the  French  Gov 
ernment,  should  be  translated  and  republished  by  our  Govern 
ment,  as  it  relates  to  what  is  most  vital  in  our  national  his 
tory.  A  noble  portrait  of  COMTE  DE  VERGENXES  adorns  volume 
one. 


TO    THE   MISSISSIPPI  43 

sition  to  Lord  North  when  they  carried  a  reso 
lution  through  the  House  of  Commons,  declaring 
that  those  who  advise  prolonging  the  war  with 
America  were  enemies  of  their  country.  In  March, 
when  the  King  was  compelled  to  call  upon  Lord 
Shelburne  to  form  a  cabinet,  the  latter  unselfishly 
advised  that  Lord  Rockingham  be  made  premier 
and  himself  took  the  modest  post  of  home  and 
colonial  secretary. 

The  leader  of  the  Rockingham  Whigs  having 
died  on  July  1,  1782,  just  three  months  after  he 
assumed  control  of  the  new  ministry,  Lord  Shel 
burne  became  Prime  Minister  and  soon  honorably 
and  amicably  concluded  the  Preliminary  Treaty 
of  peace  with  America.  This  he  deliberately  did 
at  a  sacrifice,  as  he  feared,  and  as  it  proved,  of  his 
high  office.  The  Earl  of  Shelburne  has  been 
blindly  accused  of  duplicity,  but  results  speak  for 
themselves  and  amply  vindicate  him.  From  first 
to  last  he  favored  such  liberal  terms  for  our  treaty 
commissioners  that  the  British  Parliament  would 
not  sanction  his  liberality  and  he  was  exiled  from 
power.  Although  supported  by  Edmund  Burke, 
this  friend  of  the  great  Lord  Chatham  and  patron 
of  William  Pitt,  was  driven  from  office  by  the 
enemies  of  our  country,  aided  by  its  pretended 
friends. 

Charles  James  Fox,  the  prolix  orator  and  re 
versible  politician,  formed  an  ill-timed  and  ill- 
famed  combination  with  Lord  North,  that  odious 
tool  of  early  Revolutionary  tyranny.  This 
wretched  office-getting  union  of  old  and  long-time 


44         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

political  adversaries  was  compelled,  within  a  year, 
by  the  sober  sense  of  the  English  people,  to  ratify 
the  very  terms  of  a  treaty,  which  the  combine  had 
voted  the  Shelburne  cabinet  out  of  power  for  ap 
proving.  The  historian  Lecky  says  of  this  friend 
of  our  country:  "He  bore  a  long  exclusion  from 
office  with  great  dignity  and  calm,  and  no  part 
of  his  public  career  appears  to  have  been  influenced 
by  any  sordid  desire  of  emolument,  title  or  place. ' ' 
The  cause  which  made  Lord  Shelburne  unpopular 
in  England  should  have  the  opposite  effect  here. 
True  Americans,  stand  by  your  Nation 's  friends ! 

ROBERT    R.    LIVINGSTON. 

Franklin,  Vergennes,  Shelburne  and  Livingston 
were  the  four  government  agents,  clothed  with 
power,  that  brought  about  the  first  and  final  treaties 
of  1782-1783.  Livingston  was  the  equal  of  John 
Adams  as  an  able  and  convincing  logician  without 
the  angular  and  obstinate  bluntness  of  Adams.  He 
was  the  superior  of  Jay  as  a  man  of  affairs  and  in 
a  rugged  strength  of  understanding.  Eobert  E. 
Livingston,  the  first  in  achievement  of  the  six  dis 
tinguished  members  of  this  remarkable  family,  was 
elected  to  the  Continental  Congress  in  April,  1775. 
Serving  on  many  important  committees,  he  served 
from  June  11,  1776,  to  July  4,  on  the  committee 
of  five  whose  deliberations  and  conclusions  gave 
the  reasons,  rhetorically  set  forth  by  Mr.  Jefferson, 
for  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  On  August 
10,  1781,  he  was  elected  by  Congress  Secretary  of 


TO    TEE   MISSISSIPPI  45 

Foreign  Affairs  and  in  the  discharge  of  the  most 
delicate  diplomatic  duties,  exhibited  talents  and 
aptitude  of  the  highest  order. 

In  Secretary  Livingston 's  instructions  to  Frank 
lin,  dated  January  7,  1782,  are  embodied  in  the 
most  argumentative  and  exact  form  the  American 
claim  for  the  Mississippi  as  our  boundary  line,  and 
for  other  much-desired  concessions,  .that  can  any 
where  be  found.  He  says,  I  believe,  ' '  that  our  ex 
tension  to  the  Mississippi  is  founded  in  justice, 
and  that  our  claims  are  at  least  such  as  the  events 
of  the  war  gave  us  the  right  to  insist  upon."  He 
followed  with  the  keenest  watchfulness  each  step 
in  the  negotiations  for  a  peace  with  honor  and 
when  untold  benefits  to  his  country  were  unques 
tionably  assured,  this  patriot  resigned  his  high 
post  to  become  first  chancellor  of  the  State  of  New 
York. 

FREE    NAVIGATION. 

The  high  ground  taken,  fortified  and  rendered 
impregnable  by  Livingston  and  his  three  able 
Commissioners  in  Paris,  had  been  occupied  before 
by  far-seeing  men.  The  old  Treaty  of  1763  had 
guarantied  to  the  subjects  of  France  and  Great 
Britain  the  right  to  free  navigation  of  the  Missis 
sippi,  "in  its  whole  breadth  and  length  from  its 
source  to  the  sea. ' '  The  first  American  statesman 
whose  clear  vision  seems  to  have  discerned  the 
value  to  this  country  of  this  region  was  Alex 
ander  Hamilton.  In  his  works,  published  by  the 
Putnams  and  edited  by  Senator  Lodge,  we  find  on 
page  28,  Vol.  1,  these  sentiments:  "The  farmer, 


46         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

I  am  inclined  to  hope,  builds  too  much  on  the 
present  disunion  of  Canada,  Georgia,  the  Floridas, 
the  Mississippi  and  Nova  Scotia,  from  other  col 
onies.  A  little  time,  I  trust,  will  awaken  them  to 
a  proper  sense  of  their  indiscretion.  I  please  my 
self  with  the  flattering  prospect  that  they  will  ere 
long  unite  in  one  indissoluble  chain  with  the  rest 
of  the  colonies."  This  is  from  "A  Full  Vindica 
tion  "  of  the  measures  of  Congress,  in  answer  to 
the  calumnies  of  a  Westchester  Farmer,  published 
in  December,  1774.  On  page  18  of  same  volume  is 
a  pertinent  paragraph  by  this  youth  of  seventeen, 
too  wisely  prophetic  at  so  early  a  date,  to  be  passed 
by:  "If,  by  the  necessity  of  the  thing,  manufac 
tures  should  once  establish  and  take  root  among 
us,  they  will  pave  the  way  still  more  to  the  future 
grandeur  and  glory  of  America."  The  practical 
business  sagacity  of  the  great  Washington  led  him 
to  increase  his  quota  of  money  in  what  he  calls  the 
"Mississippi  Adventure."  He  attends  the  meet 
ings  of  a  company  in  1763,  1765,  1767,  and  in 
March,  1773,  he  sends  his  tenant,  James  Wood,  as 
an  agent  to  locate  lands  ' '  as  high  up  the  Mississippi 
as  the  navigation  is  good,  having  been  informed 
that  the  lands  are  better  and  the  climate  more  tem 
perate  in  the  northern  parts  of  the  government 
than  below."  Wood  was  not  successful. 

Until  1781  all  business  relating  to  foreign  and 
financial  affairs  was  transacted  through  commit 
tees  of  Congress.  On  September  26,  1776,  a  com 
mittee  consisting  of  Gbuverneur  Morris,  R.  H.  Lee, 
G.  Wythe  and  John  Adams  were  instructed  to  draw 


TO    THE   MISSISSIPPI  47 

up  and  report  to  Congress  a  set  of  instructions  for 
the  commissioners  about  to  be  sent  abroad.  This 
committee  prepared  instructions  of  vast  import 
ance,  drawn  no  doubt  by  the  brilliant  Morris,  whose 
later  instructions  to  our  minister  in  Spain  and  to 
Franklin  in  Paris  were  accepted  by  Congress  with 
slight  change  and  "became  the  basis  of  the  treaty 
(1782)  by  which  we  finally  won  peace."  In  sup 
port  of  the  high  authority  of  President  Roosevelt, 
whose  words  we  have  just  quoted,  we  may  add  that 
the  secret  journals  of  Congress  prove  that  "the 
middle  of  the  River  Mississippi"  boundaiy  line 
was  first  publicly  claimed  by  this  statesman. 

After  much  backing  and  filling  on  this  question 
by  Congress,  clear  cut  and  well  defined  instruc 
tions  were  at  length  agreed  upon,  October  4,  1780, 
and  sent,  October  17,  to  John  Jay,  then  at  Madrid. 
These  came  from  a  new  committee,  of  which  James 
Madison  was  chairman.  They  were  presumably 
from  the  clear  brain  and  persuasive  pen  of  Mr. 
Madison,  and  are  in  his  earlier  and  best  style. 
Not  only  the  western  line,  but  the  free  navigation 
of  the  Mississippi  are  insisted  upon,  and  the  rea,- 
sons  for  the  claims  are  amplified  and  argued  with 
resistless  logic  and  force.  Congress  receded  slight 
ly  in  May,  1781,  from  the  high  stand  taken  in 
this  strong  state  paper,  but  Secretary  Livingston 
ever  after  referred  to  it  as  the  basis  of  subsequent 
instructions  relating  to  a  permanent  peace.  For 
their  enlightened  acts  and  utterances  after  1783 
other  American  statesmen  will  receive  merited  rec 
ognition. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE     CRITICAL     PERIOD     OF     SPANISH 
RULE  IN  LOUISIANA. 

FROM     1784     TO     1789  — DISTURBED     RELATIONS     WITH 
THE  WEST. 

THE  definitive  treaty  of  peace  with  Great 
Britain,  concluded  September  3, 1783,  was 
so  favorable  to  the  United  States  that  it 
was  unanimously  ratified  by  the  Congress 
of  the  Confederation  January  14,  1784,  and  im 
mediately  proclaimed.  The  foreign  relations  of 
the  confederation  government,  during  the  eight 
years  of  its  feeble  existence,  being  conducted  by 
the  many  states  acting  as  one  state,  were  success 
fully  managed.  After  the  peace,  Franklin  com 
ments  much  on  the  continuing  cordiality  of  the 
court  of  France.  Both  Vergennes  and  Luzerne, 
his  most  trusted  minister,  in  numerous  letters,  pub 
lished  and  unpublished,  express  their  great  grati 
fication  that  the  United  States  was  able  to  secure 
from  England  such  satisfactory  terms.  George 
III,  with  unconcealed  reluctance,  fixed  his  signa 
ture  to  England's  ratification  on  April  9,  1784. 

During  the  period  from  peace  to  good  govern 
ment  under  the  hero  of  the  Revolution,  who  is  also 
the  hero  of  the  ages,  some  of  the  most  significant 
events  in  our  territorial  history  occurred  in  Ken- 

48 


SPANISH   RULE   IN   LOUISIANA      49 

tucky,  Tennessee  and  in  lower  Louisiana.  Spain 
refused  to  accept  the  British  and  American  con 
struction  of  the  Treaties  of  1782  and  1783,  which 
were  identical.  Having  acquired  West  Florida 
before  the  cession,  by  conquest,  she  continued  to 
hold  the  disputed  Natchez  district  until  1795.  Con 
trolling  both  sides  of  the  lower  Mississippi,  the 
free  navigation  of  that  river  was  denied  the  west 
ern  Americans  living  on  its  banks  and  its  tribu 
taries.  The  latter  thought  it  was  their  God-given 
highway  to  the  sea  and  to  civilization.  John  Jay, 
our  Secretary  of  Foreign  Affairs  after  Livingston, 
finding  that  Spain  would  not  yield  this  point  with 
out  war,  was  willing  in  1786  to  waive  the  free  nav 
igation  for  twenty-five  years ;  but  Congress,  wiser 
than  Jay,  declined  to  yield.  However,  while  re 
fusing  to  abandon  their  treaty  rights,  Congress 
was  in  no  position  to  enforce  them.  The  first  line 
of  policy  pursued  by  Governor  Estevan  Miro,  who 
succeeded  the  gallant  Galvez  in  1785,  was  to  array 
all  the  Indian  tribes  within  reach  against  the  west 
erners,  and  then  through  these  savage  allies  to 
promote  the  aggrandizement  of  Spain. 

Following  that  successful  soldier  and  able  ad 
ministrator,  Galvez,  to  his  new  elevation  as  viceroy 
of  Mexico,  we  find  that,  with  the  aid  of  his  beauti 
ful  and  benevolent  Louisiana  wife,  he  ruled  mildly 
but  absolutely  over  the  Mexicans  for  ten  years, 
gaining  thereby  extraordinary  popularity  and  last 
ing  renown.  Galvez  built  a  costly  palace  on  the 
Bock  of  Chapultepec,  which  grew  to  be  a  castle  or 
fortress  of  formidable  strength.  It  was  captured 


50         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

by  General  Winfield  Scott  just  before  that  hero 
entered  the  City  of  Mexico  in  1847.  The  memory 
of  this  meritorious  Spaniard  has  been  perpetuated 
by  the  Texas  city  that  has  risen  so  recently  from 
its  watery  grave.  His  death  at  thirty-eight  was 
greatly  deplored. 

Eecurring  to  events  on  the  Mississippi,  it  ap 
pears  extremely  probable  that  the  first  suggestion 
of  a  union  of  Indian  tribes  and  Spaniards  to  bring 
about  a  separation  of  the  Western  territories  from 
the  rest  of  the  states,  came  from  the  Creek  Indian 
chief  with  the  Scotch  name  of  McGillivray.  This 
ambitious  savage  of  fascinating  personality  was 
the  son  of  a  Scotchman  of  high  mentality  and  a 
high-bred  Indian  princess.  Uniting  some  of  the 
worst  and  best  qualities  of  his  ancestors,  this  war 
rior,  while  not  a  statesman  of  the  forest  like  Pon- 
tiac,  or  a  gentleman  in  war  paint  like  Tecumseh, 
had  a  high  capacity  to  kill  and  a  prophetic  fore 
knowledge  of  things  to  come.  He  saw,  before 
Aranda,  Navarro  and  Miro  did,  that  Spaniards  or 
Americans  must  dominate  this  continent.  He  was 
a  number  one  expert  in  treachery  and  a  human 
bloodhound  in  pursuit.  James  Eobertson,  his 
brave  Tennessee  antagonist,  described  McGillivray 
and  the  situation  when  he  said :  ' l  The  Spaniards 
are  inspired  by  the  devil;  the  Creeks  by  the  devil 
and  the  Spaniards ;  and  the  worst  devil  in  human 
form  is  the  Creek  chief,  McGillivray."  This  en 
terprising  savage  gathered  the  Creek,  Choctaw, 
Chickasaw  and  many  other  Indian  chiefs  into  an 
assemblage  at  Pensacola,  which  he  called  a  con- 


SPANISH   RULE   IN   LOUISIANA      51 

gress.  This  meeting  was  dignified  by  the  attend 
ance  of  Governor  Miro.  The  highest  Spanish  of 
ficials  and  their  families  attended  with  the  chiefs, 
social  or  public  entertainments,  where  the  painted 
savages  excelled  even  the  whites  in  their  flatteries 
by  insisting  that  all  the  beautiful  ladies  present 
were  sisters  and  had  descended  from  heaven.  Mc- 
Gillivray's  zeal  was  made  active  by  a  bribe  or  pen 
sion  of  fifty  dollars  per  month,  and  other  chiefs 
came  in  for  the  usual  presents.  After  spending 
three  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  win  over  the 
aborigines,  we  are  prepared  to  believe  that  all  at 
least  who  had  received  rich  presents  were  ready  to 
declare  on  all  occasions,  whether  drunk  or  sober, 
that  they  had  "Spanish  hearts"  in  their  breasts 
and  scalping  knives  in  their  belts  for  the  Amer 
icans  ! 

The  civil  and  military  governor  of  Louisiana, 
while  adroitly  placating  and  uniting  the  Indians, 
did  not  neglect  religious  and  other  less  important 
concerns.  In  his  proclamation  of  1786  he  exhorts 
the  faithful  Catholics  to  attend  the  celebration  of 
the  holy  mysteries ;  to  abstain  from  work  on  sacred 
days;  to  close  shop  doors  and  prevent  the  slaves 
from  dancing  on  the  public  squares  before  the  end 
of  evening  service ;  he  forbids  females  of  color  to 
wear  on  their  heads  any  plumes  or  jewelry,  but  to 
have  their  hair  bound  in  a  kerchief ;  inhabitants  of 
the  city  are  forbidden  to  leave  it  either  by  land  or 
water  without  a  passport ;  the  verbal  sales  of  slaves 
are  forbidden.  During  this  year  the  revenues  from 
exports  and  imports  at  New  Orleans  amounted  to 


52         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

seventy-two  thousand  dollars.  In  February,  1787, 
Navarro,  the  intendent  of  the  province,  wrote  to 
Spain:  "The  powerful  enemies  we  have  to  fear 
in  this  province  are  not  the  English,  hut  the  Amer 
icans,  whom  we  must  oppose  by  active  and  suffi 
cient  measures. ' '  And  this  official  wisely  adds  by 
way  of  advice,  which  was  not  followed:  "The 
only  way  to  check  them  is  with  a  proportionate 
population,  and  it  is  not  by  imposing  commercial 
restrictions  that  this  population  is  to  be  acquired, 
but  by  granting  a  prudent  extension  and  freedom 
of  trade. ' '  The  trade  with  the  Indians  was  largely 
increased  by  means  of  a  loose  liberality  toward 
them,  but  the  moribund  Charles  III  of  Spain  was 
disposed  to  draw  the  line  of  virtual  prohibition  on 
up-river  Americans.  While  the  commerce  of  the 
developing  regions  of  Tennessee  and  Kentucky  was 
expanding  yearly  the  Spanish  duties,  extortions 
and  exactions  were  doubled.  New  customs  officers 
and  military  forces  had  been  placed  at  Natchez 
and  New  Madrid. 

Trade  restrictions  and  impositions  upon  river 
traffic  were  fast  becoming  unbearable.  Confisca 
tions  of  vessels  and  cargoes  and  the  imprisonment 
of  officers  and  crews  were  not  infrequent.  The 
victims  of  these  recurring  outrages,  if  so  fortu 
nate  as  to  escape  from  custody,  wandered  back  to 
their  settlements,  penniless,  hungry  and  in  rags. 

A  feeling  of  general  indignation  took  posses 
sion  of  the  pioneers  of  the  Kentucky  and  Cum 
berland  valleys.  A  military  invasion  of  lower 
Louisiana  and  the  forcible  seizure  of  Natchez  and 


SPANISH   RULE   IN   LOUISIANA      53 

New  Orleans  were  much  discussed.  The  emer 
gency  called  forth  a  leader  of  ability  and  audacity 
in  the  person  of  a  daring  but  disgruntled  soldier 
of  the  Revolution.  Colonel  James  Wilkinson,  born 
in  Maryland,  had  been  with  Arnold  at  Quebec ;  was 
adjutant  general'on  the  staff  of  Horatio  Gates,  with 
whom  he  quarreled  when  Gates  was  Secretary  of 
the  Board  of  War,  and  later,  was  "clothier  gen 
eral  ' '  of  the  ill-clad  Revolutionary  army.  Wilkin 
son  in  1787,  being  then  a  peaceful  Kentucky  mer 
chant,  casting  about  to  find  some  solution  for  the 
practical  nonintercourse  problem,  proceeded  down 
the  Mississippi  with  four  boatloads  of  flour,  to 
bacco  and  other  merchandise.  The  first  obstruc 
tion  he  encountered  was  Gayoso  de  Lemos,  the 
Spanish  commander  at  Natchez,  who,  after  mu 
tual  hospitalities,  was  so  impressed  with  the  rank 
and  importance  of  the  American  officer,  that  he 
consigned  his  cargo  and  supercargo,  free  from 
detention  and  duty,  to  his  official  superior  at  New 
Orleans.  Wilkinson's  fine  bearing  and  address 
would  have  enabled  him,  without  an  introduction, 
to  have  reached  Governor  Miro,  who,  in  finesse, 
was  more  than  his  equal.  Both  men  saw  instinc 
tively  that  they  had  nothing  to  gain  by  engaging 
in  the  dangerous  and  doubtful  game  of  war.  Hos 
pitality  due  to  an  American  soldier  of  rank  was 
the  first  move  by  Miro  in  the  play  of  diplomacy. 
Wines  of  the  best  vintage  of  Spain  and  Portugal 
contributed  greatly  to  the  progress  of  the  intrigue. 
By  the  time  the  cognac  and  cigars  were  reached 
his  excellency  could  see  no  reason  why  laws  or 


54         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

customs  regulations  should  stand  between  friends. 
Colonel  Wilkinson,  being  such    an    uncommonly 
good  fellow,  was  at  once  given  the  freedom  of  the 
city,  of  the  port  and  of  the  entire  Mississippi  River. 
His  four  cargoes  of  goods  were  landed  free  of  all 
duty  and  all  charges.    More  than  this,  future  free 
trade  was  then  and  there  declared  between  Louis 
iana     and     this     particular     Kentucky     colonel. 
Whether  the  three  thousand  dollar  Spanish  loan 
or  the  five  thousand  dollars  conceded  to  be  paid  for 
bribing  others  or  the  larger  sums  asked  for  to  se 
duce  Muter,  Marshall  and  other  high  officials  from 
allegiance  to  their  Country,  were  transactions  com 
pleted  at    the  first  or    second    visit,  cannot    be 
affirmed.    But  the  second  being  prolonged  through 
the  hot  months  of  June,  July  and  August  and  far 
into  September,  was  perhaps  most  fruitful  in  re 
sults  and    corruptions.     The  "clothier    general" 
returned  to  the  country  he  had  dishonored,  by  the 
Immaculate  Conception  river  of  the  saintly  Mar- 
quette,  rich  in  available  funds  and  opulent  in  an 
ticipated  glory.    Wilkinson  spent  the  years  1787-8 
in  writing  letters  directly  or  indirectly  to  Charles 
III  of  Spain,  so  self-convicting,  so  explanatory  of 
explanations  and  so  interminable  in  length  that 
the  efforts  to  read  them  may  have  shortened  his 
majesty's  life,  which  ended  in  December,  1788.    A 
few  extracts  from  this  disgraceful  correspondence, 
found  in  the  Spanish  archives,  fully  justify  the 
strictures  in  our  narrative. 

Governor  Miro,  on  January  8,  1788,  in  a  dis 
patch  to  Spain's  minister  of  state,  says:     "The 


SPANISH   RULE   IN   LOUISIANA      55 

delivering  up  of  Kentucky  into  his  majesty's 
hands,  which  is  the  main  object  to  which  Wilkin 
son  has  promised  to  devote  himself  entirely,  would 
forever  constitute  this  province  a  rampart  for  the 
protection  of  New  Spain." 

In  April  Wilkinson  writes  Miro:  "I  beg  you 
to  be  easy  and  to  be  satisfied  that  nothing  shall 
deter  me  from  attending  exclusively  to  the  object 
we  have  on  hand,  and  I  am  convinced  that  the  suc 
cess  of  our  plan  will  depend  on  the  disposition  of 
the  court."  On  May  15  the  plotter  introduces  to 
Miro  and  Navarro  ' i  My  dear  and  venerable  sirs, ' ' 
his  friend,  Major  Isaac  Dunn,  as  "a  fit  auxiliary 
in  the  execution  of  our  political  designs,  which  he 
has  embraced  with  cordiality."  On  January  1, 
1789,  he  writes  to  Miro  that  before  the  new  con 
gress  can  do  anything  to  frustrate  their  schemes, 
"we  shall  have  become  too  strong  to  be  subjected 
by  any  force  which  may  be  sent  against  us. " 

Writing  to  the  Spanish  governor  February  14, 
1789,  Wilkinson  reveals  his  true  colors  when  speak 
ing  of  Mr.  Brown,  a  young  man  without  experi 
ence,  sent  as  a  delegate  to  Congress :  ' '  Neverthe 
less,  as  he  firmly  perseveres  in  his  adherence  to 
our  interests,  we  have  sent  him  to  the  new  Con 
gress,  apparently  as  our  representative,  but  in 
reality  as  a  spy  on  the  actions  of  that  body.  I 
would  myself  have  undertaken  that  charge,  but  I 
did  not  for  two  reasons :  First,  my  presence  was 
necessary  here ;  and  next,  I  should  have  found  my 
self  under  the  obligation  of  swearing  to  support 
the  new  government,  which  I  am  in  duty  bound  to 


56         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

oppose."  Such  being  a  minor  part  of  the  dread 
fully  insinuating  and  criminally  compromising 
record  of  Wilkinson,  how  long  could  such  a  com 
forter  of  his  country's  enemies  have  kept  his  head 
on  his  shoulders  under  any  strict  government  like 
that  of  Elizabeth  of  England!  Possibly  forty- 
eight  hours.  What  would  have  been  done  with 
him  under  the  absolute  rule  of  Napoleon  I?  He 
would  have  been  promptly  tried  and  as  promptly 
shot !  And  yet  this  bribe-giver  and  bribe-receiver, 
who  was  twice  court-martialed,  was  spared  to  plot 
against  the  dismemberment  of  the  republic  with 
Aaron  Burr,  "that  first  of  American  reprobates." 
It  is  but  just  to  our  authorities  to  say  that  neither 
in  1796,  when  Wilkinson  became  the  head  of  the 
army,  nor  in  1806,  when  he  escaped  punishment 
for  treason  with  Burr,  was  there  a  scintilla  of  the 
evidence  known  to  the  officers  of  the  law  that  has 
been  since  recovered  from  the  archives  of  Spain. 
It  is  more  difficult  to  reach  a  just  conclusion 
concerning  the  varying  course  of  action  of  that 
hardiest  of  frontiersman,  John  Sevier.  He  had 
fought  bravely  and  worked  laboriously  to  settle 
the  Watauga  region,  between  the  Cumberland  and 
Alleghany  Mountains.  In  1784  North  Carolina 
agreed  to  cede  twenty-nine  million  acres  lying  be 
tween  their  own  mountain  boundary  and  the  Mis 
sissippi  to  the  general  government.  To  be  thus 
cast  off  by  the  parent  state  aroused  a  feeling  of 
unrest  and  rebellious  discontent.  A  convention 
presided  over  by  Sevier  met  at  Jonesboro  and  de 
cided  to  form  a  government  for  themselves.  They 


SPANISH   RULE   IN   LOUISIANA      57 

properly  appealed  to  Congress  for  advice  as  to  a 
suitable  constitution.  North  Carolina  took  alarm 
and  annulled  the  act  of  cession.  The  governor  of 
the  State  commissioned  Sevier  to  restore  the  reign 
of  order  and  law,  which  he  did  with  wise  discretion 
and  perfect  good  faith.  In  1785  a  second  move 
ment  in  favor  of  independence  became  so  strong 
that  even  Sevier  was  carried  along  with  it.  The 
people  of  Holston,  numbering  in  all  about  twenty- 
five  thousand,  sent  representatives  to  Greenville, 
which  they  called  their  capital,  and  elected  John 
Sevier  their  governor.  They  proposed  to  extend 
their  territory  to  the  bend  of  the  Tennessee  and 
include  about  one-third  of  what  is  now  Kentucky. 
The  recognition  asked  for  from  Congress  was  not 
forthcoming.  Congress  desired  the  North  Caro 
lina  cession  renewed  so  as  to  bring  the  separate 
territory  under  federal  control.  The  State  de 
clined.  Sevier  held  that  the  State  could  not  revoke 
the  first  act  of  cession.  An  attempt  to  gain  the 
influence  and  support  of  Benjamin  Franklin  by 
naming  the  proposed  State  Frankland  or  Franklin, 
signally  failed.  Virginia  got  excited  over  these 
events,  but  Congress  kept  cool.  This  trouble  and 
the  inability  to  enforce  two  Indian  treaties  caused 
General  Washington  to  utter  a  timely  word  of  wis 
dom:  "That  experience  has  taught  us  that  men 
will  not  adopt  and  carry  into  execution  measures 
the  best  calculated  for  their  own  good,  without  the 
intervention  of  a  coercive  power."  Meanwhile 
the  Franklin  settlers  were  fighting  both  Indians 
and  each  other.  This  could  not  last.  In 


58         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

May,  1787,  Governor  Caswell  of  North  Carolina 
issued  a  mild  but  firm  proclamation,  and  Sevier's 
territorial  government  of  Franklin  was  at  an  end. ' ' 
The  ultimatum  of  Spain  had  been  brought  to 
Philadelphia  in  May,  1785,  by  Diego  de  Gardoqui, 
her  minister.  It  was  that  the  free  navigation  of 
the  lower  Mississippi  would  not  be  surrendered. 
Madison  expressed  the  prevailing  thought  when 
he  said :  i  l  We  must  bear  with  Spain  for  awhile. ' ' 
Washington  showed  his  usual  foresight  when,  in 
June,  1785,  he  wrote  to  Marbois:  "The  emigra 
tion  to  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi  is  astonish 
ingly  great,  and  chiefly  of  a  description  of  people 
who  are  not  very  subordinate  to  the  law  and  con 
stitution  of  the  State  they  go  from.  Whether  the 
prohibition,  therefore,  of  the  Spaniards  is  just  or 
unjust,  politic  or  impolitic,  it  will  be  with  difficulty 
that  people  of  this  class  can  be  restrained  in  the 
enjoyment  of  natural  advantages."  The  discus 
sions  for  the  next  two  years  in  the  Congress  at 
Philadelphia  were  too  much  along  sectional  lines 
to  be  edifying  or  instructive.  The  more  judicious 
did  not  care  for  sections,  half  sections  or  quarter 
sections.  But  all  at  last,  including  Jay,  wanted 
the  entire  navigation  by  treaty  or  by  force.  Gar- 
dequi  and  Miro  were  working  at  cross  purposes 
and  at  the  end  of  1788,  at  odds.  Miro's  chief  sup 
ports  were  Wilkinson  and  McGillivray,  and  both 
had  failed  him.  The  man  who  had  long  tried  to 
detach  Kentucky  from  the  Union  collapsed  when 
the  young  patriot,  Andrew  Jackson,  brought  to 
Tennessee  the  glorious  tidings  that  the  constitution 


SPANISH   RULE   IN   LOUISIANA      59 

under  which  we  now  live  and  prosper  had  been 
ratified,  and  that  disorder  and  disintegration  were 
at  an  end. 

A  general  census,  ordered  in  1788,  shows  the 
following  distribution  of  population : 

LOWER   LOUISIANA. 

New  Orleans 5338 

To  the  Balize 2378 

Terre  Aux  Beufs 661 

Bayous  St.  John  and  Gentilly. . . .  772 

Barrataria  40 

Tchoupitoulas  Parish 7589 

Parish  of  St.  Charles 2381 

St.  John  Baptist 1368 

St.  James 1551 

La  Fourche 1164 

La  Fourche  Interior 1500 

Iberville 944 

Point  Coupee  Parish 2004 

Oppelousas 1985 

Attakapas 2541 

New  Iberia 190 

Washita  232 

Eapides 147 

Avoyelles    209 

Natchitoches   1021 

Arkansas  settlements 119 

UPPER   LOUISIANA. 

St.  Louis  1197 

St.  Genevieve  .  896 


60         TEE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

WEST  FLORIDA. 

Manchac  and  Galveston 552 

Baton  liouge 682 

Feliciana   730 

Natchez 2679 

Mobile 1468 

Pensacola   265 

Aggregate  population 42,611 

Being  an  increase  of  ten  thousand  in  three  years. 
About  twenty  thousand  of  these  were  white  inhab 
itants. 

The  settlements  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  had 
in  1788  a  population  of  eighty  thousand. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  when  that  vast 
region  called  Louisiana  was  divided  into  nine  dis 
tricts  in  1723,  not  only  Missouri,  but  what  is  now 
Kansas,  Iowa  and  much  more  territory,  belonged 
to  the  district  of  Illinois.  This  district  was  first 
in  extent  and  second  in  population.  Fort  Chartres 
was  the  chief  place  and  first  seat  of  justice.  The 
next  chef-lieu  of  the  district  was  St.  Louis,  to  which 
the  transfer  was  completed  of  civil  officers  and 
troops  on  October  10,  1765.  Twenty  years  later 
came  the  year  of  the  great  waters.  The  flood  of 
1785,  like  those  of  1844  and  1851,  invaded  Main 
street,  a  part  of  which  became  navigable  for  ca 
noes.  The  first  settlement  of  Ohio  began  at  Mari 
etta  in  1788,  the  year  that  the  capable  governor, 
Manuel  Perez,  succeeds  his  worthy  predecessor, 
Commandant  General  Cruzat,  at  the  St.  Louis  mil 
itary  fortification  and  civil  capital. 


SPANISH   RULE   IN   LOUISIANA      61 

A  notable  reference  to  the  subject  so  generally 
discussed  prior  to  1789  may  fitly  close  our  relation, 
and  is  found  in  a  letter  from  Thomas  Jefferson, 
dated  Paris,  January  25,  1786: 

"Our  confederacy  must  be  viewed  as  the  nest 
from  which  all  America,  North  and  South,  is  to 
be  peopled.  We  should  take  care,  too,  not  to  think 
it  for  the  interest  of  that  great  continent  to  press 
too  soon  on  the  Spaniards.  Those  countries  can 
not  be  in  better  hands.  My  fear  is  that  they  are 
too  feeble  to  hold  them  till  our  population  can  be 
sufficiently  advanced  to  gain  it  from  them  piece 
by  piece.  The  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  we 
must  have.  This  is  all  we  are  as  yet  ready  to  re 
ceive." 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  FIRST  PRESIDENT. 

STEPS    TO    SECURE    FREE    NAVIGATION. — THIS    GREAT 
GOVERNMENT'S  REAL  BEGINNING. 

IN  a  technical  sense  constitutional  government 
under  our  benign  supreme  law  of  the  land, 
dates  from   March  4,   1789.     In  an  actual 
sense  the  salutary  supremacy  of  the  consti 
tution,  to  use  the  words  of  Washington,  was  not 
felt  until  after  April  30,  1789,  the  day  when  the 
hero  or  heroes  took  the  oath  of  office  under  Chan 
cellor  Livingston  at  the  corner  of  Broad  and  Wall 
streets,  New  York. 

The  laggard  patriots  of  the  House  of  Represen 
tatives  found  present  a  bare  quorum  of  thirty  mem 
bers  on  April  1.  On  April  6  enough  of  the  loiter 
ing  Senators  arrived  to  enable  the  First  Congress 
to  organize  and  proceed  to  the  business  of  inaug 
urating  the  first  chief  of  state.  Prior  to  the  first 
President's  departure  from  Mt,  Vernon  he  learned 
that  sinister  schemes  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain 
and  Spain  threatened  the  internal  peace  of  the 
Union.  The  Spanish  authorities  at  New  Orleans 
long  held  out  as  a  bait  the  free  navigation  of  the 
Mississippi,  to  the  up-river  inhabitants  if  they 
would  cut  loose  from  the  United  States.  Lord  Dor 
chester,  governor  general  of  Canada,  was  suspected 

62 


THE    FIRST   PRESIDENT  63 

of  promising  a  helping  band  to  the  frontiersmen 
who  might  feel  disposed  to  seize  New  Orleans. 
Hamilton,  the  first  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  gave 
the  British  agent  in  New  York  to  understand  that 
he  might  dismiss  all  fears  about  having  a  stable 
administration  to  deal  with.  The  Republic  was 
now  able  to  protect  and  control  the  governed.  A 
government  by  supplication,  a  political  monstros 
ity  with  thirteen  heads,  had  passed  forever  away. 

North  Carolina  came  into  the  Union  in  Novem 
ber,  1789,  and  on  February  25,  1790,  the  State 
ceded  to  the  United  States  the  territory  now  known 
as  Tennessee.  None  of  the  thirty  thousand  inhab 
itants  made  known  their  wishes  concerning  this 
change  for  the  better.  The  dignified  William 
Blount,  of  North  Carolina,  became  first  territorial 
governor  in  October,  1790.  Our  hardy  old  heroes, 
Robertson  and  Sevier,  having  obtained  forgiveness 
for  their  sins  of  indiscretion  and  rashness,  were 
made  generals  commanding  the  Eastern  and  West 
ern  military  districts. 

Soon  after  Washington  came  into  office  he  found 
that  the  Southwestern  Indians  were  disposed  to 
give  much  trouble.  He  endeavored  to  make  peace 
with  the  Creek  Indians  and  with  other  tribes,  but 
learned  that  the  troublesome  chief,  Alexander  Mc- 
Gillivray,  ever  stood  in  the  way.  As  a  last  resort 
this  dangerous  and  treacherous  half  breed  was  in 
vited  to  visit  New  York,  the  temporary  capital,  in 
hope  that  his  bloody-mindedness  might  be  molli 
fied  by  some  pecuniary  consolation. 

With  twenty-eight  of  his  chief  warriors  in  his 


64         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

train  tliis  feather-bedecked  and  paint-coated 
savage  was  received  on  his  route  with  royal  liber 
ality  and  distinction.  The  Tammany  Society,  of 
New  York,  which  Aaron  Burr  had  recently  organ 
ized,  tried  to  impress  the  forest  chiefs  with  their 
own  semi-savage  paraphernalia  and  bogus  Indian 
toggery,  but  the  genuine  child  of  the  forest  gave 
only  the  guttural  grunt  of  contempt  for  such 
shams.  When  this  Scotch  freebooter  or  land 
pirate  got  down  to  business  it  was  found  that  all  he 
wanted  was  a  monopoly  of  furnishing  the  sup 
plies  to  the  Creeks ;  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
for  the  alleged  confiscation  of  his  lands  in  Georgia, 
and  the  pay  and  rank  of  a  brigadier  general  in  the 
United  States  army,  for  life. 

While  this  almost  equaled  the  Algerine  pirates 
in  the  direction  of  levying  blackmail,  the  govern 
ment  commissioners  recommended  compliance 
with  the  stand-and-deliver  demands,  so  anxious 
were  our  border  settlers  to  be  saved  from  the  hor 
rors  of  prolonged  Indian  wars.  A  treaty  with  this 
chief  gave  us  all  the  territory  north  and  east  of  the 
Oconee  River  in  Georgia. 

While  promising  to  place  his  tribe  under  our 
protection,  this  double  deceiver  was  at  this  precise 
time  in  the  pay  of  Spain  arid  Great  Britain.  The 
red-skinned  rascal  so  played  upon  the  sympathies 
of  General  Knox  and  even  Washington,  that  the 
latter  gave  the  Creek  chief  a  pair  of  his  epaulets 
and  some  books,  the  latter  doubtless  intended  for 
his  moral  elevation.  It  is  gravely  related  that  on 
more  than  one  spectacular  or  war-path  occasion 


THE   FIRST   PRESIDENT  65 

this  thrifty  diplomatist  of  the  wilderness  would 
don  a  scarlet  red  British  uniform  and  General 
Washington's  epaulets,  which,  with  his  Spanish 
cocked  hat  and  paint-smeared  face,  presented  a 
sight  never  to  be  forgotten  by  gods  or  men!  At 
this  time— 1790— Wilkinson,  a  once  formidable  en 
emy  of  National  supremacy,  was  whining:  "My 
situation  is  extremely  painful,  since,  abhorring  du 
plicity,  I  must  dissemble. "  If  he  had  said,  since 
' '  doting  on  duplicity,  I  am  forced  to  the  wall, ' '  he 
would  have  approached  nearer  the  truth.  His 
dupes,  except  Sebastian,  had  deserted  him  and 
Governor  Miro  was  about  to  pension  another  traitor 
to  watch  him. 

ATTITUDE    OF   AMERICANS. 

In  presenting  next  in  our  narrative  history,  the 
facts  of  record,  it  seems  fairest  to  let  each  cabinet 
officer  and  public  man  make  known  himself  his  at 
titude  on  the  extension  of  our  territory.  On  July 
11,  1790,  Jefferson,  referring  to  the  spirited  prep 
arations  of  England  now  seemingly  bent  on  war 
with  Spain,  writes  to  James  Monroe:  "Other 
symptoms  indicate  a  general  design  on  all  Louisi 
ana  and  the  two  Floridas.  What  a  tremendous 
position  would  success  in  these  objects  place  us 
in!  Embraced  from  the  St.  Croix  to  St.  Mary's 
on  the  one  side  by  their  possessions,  on  the  other 
by  their  fleet,  we  need  not  hesitate  to  say  that  they 
would  soon  find  means  to  unite  to  them  all  the  ter 
ritory  covered  by  the  ramifications  of  the  Missis 
sippi.  " 

5 


66         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

Just  one  month  later,  President  Washington 
writes  to  Lafayette :  ' '  Gradually  advancing  in  our 
task  of  civil  government,  unentangled  in  the 
crooked  politics  of  Europe,  wanting  scarcely  any 
thing  but  the  full  navigation  of  the  Mississippi, 
(which  we  must  have  and  as  certainly  shall  have 
as  we  remain  a  nation),  I  have  supposed  that,  with 
the  undeviating  exercise  of  a  just,  steady  and  pru 
dent  National  policy,  we  shall  be  the  gainers, 
whether  the  powers  of  the  Old  World  may  be  in 
peace  or  war,  but  more  especially  in  the  latter  case. 
*  *  *  Should  a  war  take  place  between  Great 
Britain  and  Spain,  I  conceive,  from  a  great  variety 
of  concurring  circumstances,  there  is  the  highest 
probability  that  the  Floridas  will  soon  be  in  the 
possession  of  the  former."  In  the  same  letter, 
Washington  advises  Spain  to  be  wise  and  liberal 
at  once  and  annihilate  all  cause  of  difference  be 
tween  that  nation  and  his  own. 

On  August  2,  1790,  the  Secretary  of  State,  in 
structed  by  the  cabinet,  wrote  to  Carmichael  at 
Madrid:  "With  this  information,  written  and 
oral,  you  will  be  enabled  to  meet  the  minister  in 
conversations  on  the  subject  of  the  navigation  of 
the  Mississippi,  to  which  we  wish  you  to  lead  his 
attention  immediately.  Impress  him  thoroughly 
with  the  necessity  of  an  early  and  even  an  immedi 
ate  settlement  of  this  matter  of  a  return  to  the 
field  of  negotiation  for  this  purpose;  and  though 
it  must  be  done  delicately,  yet  he  must  be  made  to 
understand  unequivocally,  that  a  resumption  of 
the  negotiation  is  not  desired  on  our  part,  unless 


THE    FIRST   PRESIDENT  67 

he  can  determine,  in  the  first  opening  of  it,  to  yield 
the  immediate  and  full  enjoyment  of  that  naviga 
tion.  It  is  impossible  to  answer  for  the 
forbearance  of  our  Western  citizens.  We  endeavor 
to  quiet  them  with  the  expectation  of  an  attain 
ment  of  their  rights  by  peaceable  means.  But 
should  they,  in  a  moment  of  impatience,  hazard 
others,  there  is  no  saying  how  far  we  may  be  led ; 
for  neither  themselves  nor  their  rights  will  ever  be 
abandoned  by  us. ' ' 

This  peremptory  language  was  to  be  used  in  case 
the  threatened  war  between  Great  Britain  arid 
Spain  assumed  a  grave  aspect.  A  milder  tone  was 
to  be  employed  if  it  was  averted  and  Spain  still 
remained  in  a  position  to  successfully  resist  our 
demands  by  force.  William  Pitt  was  using  strong 
expressions  to  induce  Spain  to  submit  to  us,  but 
so  long  as  the  expectation  existed  that  the  "  fam 
ily  compact"  would  make  an  ally  of  France 
against  England,  the  latter 's  influence  was  not 
serviceable  to  us.  However,  when  Lord  Dorches 
ter  's  request  came  for  the  privilege  to  transfer  the 
British  troops  over  our  territory  to  attack  the 
Spaniards  in  Louisiana,  in  the  event  of  war, 
Washington  was  disposed  to  grant  the  request. 

On  this  subject,  Hamilton  reported  September 
15,  1790:  "The  conduct  of  Spain  toward  us  pre 
sents  a  picture  far  less  favorable.  The  direct  aid 
we  received  from  her  during  the  war  was  incon 
siderable  compared  with  her  faculty  of  aiding  us. 
She  refrained  from  acknowledging  our  independ 
ence  ;  has  never  acceded  to  the  treaty  of  commerce 


68         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

made  with  France,  though  a  right  of  doing  so  was 
reserved  to  her,  nor  made  any  other  treaty  with  us ; 
she  has  maintained  possessions  within  our  acknowl 
edged  limits  without  our  consent;  she  persever- 
ingly  obstructs  our  sharing  in  the  navigation  of 
the  Mississippi,  though  it  is  a  privilege  essential 
to  us,  and  to  which  we  consider  ourselves  as  hav 
ing  an  indisputable  title.  *  *  * 

"An  increase  of  the  means  of  annoying  us  in 
the  same  hands  is  a  certain  ill  consequence  of  the 
acquisition  of  the  Floridas  and  Louisiana  by  the 
British.  This  will  result  not  only  from  contiguity 
to  a  greater  part  of  our  territory,  but  from  the  in 
creased  facility  of  acquiring  undivided  influence 
over  all  the  Indian  tribes  inhabiting  within  the 
borders  of  the  United  States.  Additional  danger 
of  the  dismemberment  of  the  Western  country  is 
another  ill  consequence  to  be '-apprehended  from 
that  acquisition.  An  explicit  recognition 

of  our  right  to  navigate  the  Mississippi  to  and  from 
the  ocean,  with  the  possession  of  New  Orleans, 
would  greatly  mitigate  the  causes  of  apprehension 
from  the  conquest  of  the  Floridas  by  the  British. 
*  *  The  Western  posts  on  one  side  and  the 
navigation  of  the  Mississippi  on  the  other,  call 
for  a  vigilant  attention  to  what  is  going  on.  They 
are  both  of  importance.  The  securing  of  the  latter 
may  be  regarded  in  its  consequences  as  essential 
to  the  unity  of  the  empire.  We  ought 

not  to  leave  in  the  possession  of  any  foreign  power 
the  territorie^  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi, 
which  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  key  to  it, ' ' 


THE   FIRST   PRESIDENT  69 

William  Carmichael  wrote  from  Madrid,  Janu 
ary  24,  1791 :  ' '  This  government  is  weak ;  the  min 
istry  is  in  a  ticklish  situation;  the  queen  governs 
and  governs  with  caprice ;  the  people  begin  to  dis 
pute  their  sovereigns;  and  although  they  have  no 
chiefs  to  look  up  to,  the  dissatisfaction  is  general. ' ' 
Count  de  Campomanes  at  this  time  expressed  the 
enlightened  opinion,  "that  it  is  the  interest  of  his 
country  to  form  liberal  and  lasting  connections 
with  the  United  States." 

AFFAIRS  WITH  ENGLAND. 

Our  affairs  with  England  during  the  first  term 
of  Washington  were  as  little  satisfactory  as  were 
our  unsettled  disputes  with  Spain.  Hammond,  the 
first  accredited  British  minister,  had  apparently 
been  sent  over  to  wrangle,  spy  and  palaver  and 
thus  delay  the  inevitable  day  for  the  evacuation  of 
the  British  posts.  He  and  Jefferson  rehearsed  for 
about  the  fifth  time  each,  how  the  country  of  the 
other  had  been  guilty  of  the  first  infractions  of  the 
peace  treaty  and  the  criminations  and  recrimina 
tions  lowered  somewhat  the  diplomatic  dignity  of 
both  men.  The  fact  that  Virginians  owed  Eng 
land  about  ten  million  dollars  of  ante  bellum  war 
debts  was  a  sore  point  with  the  Secretary  of  State, 
and  to  inflict  a  return  blow  he  bluntly  charged  that 
the  British  were  indirectly  responsible  for  all  the 
Indian  raids  and  massacres  that  had  happened 
during  and  since  the  Revolutionary  War.  The 
dignified  and  scholarly  Thomas  Pinckney  showed 
a  better  temper  in  London,  although  his  mission 


70         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

was  at  first  barren  of  results.  But  four  years  later 
this  ablest  of  the  four  historic  Pinckneys  cleverly 
negotiated  our  first  and  most  important  treaty  with 
Spain,  the  wise  Treaty  of  1795. 

During  the  whole  of  Washington's  first  four 
years  he  was  harassed  by  the  fierce  hostilities  of 
the  Indians.  The  Wabash  tribes  and  their  allies 
in  the  Northwest  at  this  time  numbered  about 
thirty  thousand.  They  defeated  Brigadier-Gen 
eral  Harmar  and  Major-General  Arthur  St.  Glair 
with  serious  loss  to  the  Americans.  These  two 
officers,  who  were  not  sufficiently  cautious  and 
wary,  encountered  superior  forces  of  more  expe 
rienced  fighters,  who  were  better  led.  The  poli 
ticians  who  blamed  General  Knox  for  these 
reverses  would  themselves  probably  have  done 
worse.  They  certainly  could  not  have  done  bet 
ter  than  when  Washington  and  Knox  organized 
victory  a  little  later  under  the  ' '  warrior  who  never 
sleeps/'  the  dashing  Major-General  Anthony 
Wayne. 

The  Southwestern  Indians,  who  were  more 
numerous,  were  encouraged  to  commit  depreda 
tions  and  go  on  forays  by  Governor  Miro,  other 
Spanish  and  perhaps  some  British  agents.  Still, 
the  revengeful  Chickamaugas,  the  Creeks  and  the 
Cherokees  did  not  require  much  encouragement  to 
kill,  which  was  their  chief  occupation.  In  Ken 
tucky,  which  became  a  State  in  the  Union  in  1792, 
the  great  abilities  of  Governor  Isaac  Shelby  were 
taxed  to  the  utmost  to  repel  the  Indian  marauders 
and  thwart  the  schemes  of  the  irrepressible  Wil- 


THE   FIRST  PRESIDENT  71 

kinson,  who,  for  years  after  taking  the  oath  of 
allegiance  to  the  United  States,  carried  Spanish 
pensions  in  his  pocket  and  conducted  treasonable 
correspondence  with  official  agents  of  Spain.  This 
unique  scoundrel  can  fairly  claim  the  second  or 
third  place  or  niche  in  the  American  hall  of  ill 
fame  with  Arnold  and  Burr. 

In  the  Cumberland  region  the  settlers  were 
passing  through  the  darkness  that  preceded  the 
dawn  of  liberty  and  union. 

The  Creek  chief,  McGillivray,  being  in  1792 
under  larger  pay  from  the  Spanish  government 
than  from  ours,  is  again  trying  to  unite  all  the 
Indian  tribes  against  the  Americans.  In  pursu 
ance  of  this  stimulating  policy  a  party  of  two 
hundred  Chickamaugas  crossed  the  Tennessee 
River  and  falling  upon  the  more  exposed  settle 
ments,  butchered  all  but  one  of  a  family  of  ten 
persons,  leaving  them  groaning,  bleeding  and 
expiring  on  the  floor  of  the  lonely  frontier  cabin. 
A  child  of  six  years,  having  the  instinctive  intel 
ligence  to  conceal  himself  in  the  flue  of  the -chim 
ney,  dropped  down  from  his  hiding  place  and 
stepping  over  the  bloody  bodies  of  father,  mother, 
brothers  and  sisters,  fled  through  the  woods  for 
two  miles  in  the  darkness  of  midnight  to  a  haven 
of  seeming  safety.  The  horrible  tale  of  this  home 
less  and  motherless  child  caused  all  the  mothers 
of  Tennessee  to  tremble  and  press  their  own  babes 
closer  to  their  breasts,  since  now  at  night  the 
dreadful  le  cri  de  mort  was  often  heard. 

Valentine  Sevier,  who  fought  with  his  renowned 


72         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

brother,  John,  at  King's  Mountain,  had  three 
valiant  sons  who  hastened  to  join  General  Robert 
son  and  risk  their  lives  to  prevent  atrocities  that 
would  have  disgraced  even  the  Natchez  barbarians. 
These  brave  young  men  with  others  were  rowing 
up  the  Cumberland  River  to  Nashville  to  proffer 
their  services  to  Robertson.  They  had  reached 
a  sharp  bend  in  this  winding  stream  when  an  in 
stantaneous  discharge  from  a  hundred  Indian 
rifles  killed  the  three  nephews  of  John  Sevier. 
But  in  the  darkest  of  these  dreadful  pioneer  days 
in  Tennessee,  the  undaunted  Robertson  expressed 
the  feeling  of  the  other  brave  men  battling  against 
savage  odds  when  he  serenely  said :  ' '  We  may  be 
cut  off  in  the  struggle,  but  let  us  hold  fast  our 
faith,  our  innocence,  our  integrity,  our  honor  and 
our  Government."  An  Indian's  bullet  tore 
through  Robertson's  arm  from  wrist  to  elbow,  but 
still  he  would  not  lead  his  men  into  the  enemy's 
country,  because  restrained  by  military  orders 
from  Philadelphia, 

Emboldened  by  the  defensive  attitude  of  the 
frontiersmen,  seven  hundred  Creeks,  Cherokee  and 
Shawnee  warriors  attacked  Buchanan's  station, 
just  four  miles  from  Nashville,  from  which  they 
were  repulsed  with  heavy  slaughter.  Fifteen  rifle 
men,  thirty  women  and  forty  children,  made  a 
defense  of  this  fiercely  assailed  blockhouse,  which 
for  desperate  courage  and  sagacious  bravery 
equals  any  like  defense  found  in  the  annals  of 
heroism.  The  men  reserved  their  fire  until  the 
Indians  came  within  ten  paces ;  then  having  three 


THE   FIRST   PRESIDENT  73 

rifles  each,  the  women  loaded  their  rifles,  hand 
ing  them  to  the  men  loaded,  so  that  a  continuous 
fire  was  kept  up,  rendered  more  galling  by  a  num 
ber  of  the  women,  both  loading  and  firing  with 
the  men.  The  children  were  kept  busy  raising 
hats  upon  sticks  before  the  most  open  port  holes, 
which  ruse  drew  the  Indian  fire.  As  certain  death 
was  the  consequence  of  defeat,  the  price  on  each 
life  was  placed  at  the  maximum  rate.  Castleman, 
Rains,  Mrs.  Buchanan,  Joseph  Brown  and  the 
relentless  Robertson  are  the  only  undying  names 
on  record  to  preserve  the  memory  of  the  most 
brilliant  defense  ever  made  against  savage  war 
fare.  Robertson  snorted  like  the  warhorse  he  was 
at  the  sound  of  battle  and  the  boom  of  his  one 
swivel  gun  warned  the  Indians  that  he  would  be 
on  them  at  daylight.  They  retreated  with  celerity, 
dragging  their  wounded  and  dead. 

To  the  philosophic  reader  the  connection  of  all 
this  with  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  is  plain. 
Had  not  the  Eastern  tributaries  of  the  Mississippi 
been  reddened  with  the  blood  of  brave  men,  and 
had  not  a  line  of  States  on  the  east  side  of  that 
river  been  gained  and  retained  through  this 
bravery  and  loyalty  and  also  by  the  firmness,  fore 
sight  and  wisdom  of  our  first  administration  in 
preventing  the  Spanish  from  separating  a  large 
belt  of  territory  from  us  on  the  settled  side  of  the 
dividing  river,  we  should  not  have  gotten  over  to 
the  unsettled  west  side  so  soon  as  we  did.  Far- 
reaching  events  are  usually  preceded  by  significant 
approaches  to  them. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

WASHINGTON'S  SECOND  TERM. 

LOUISIANA     FROM      MARCH,    1793,      TO      1797  —  YOUNG 
NATION    BESET   BY   ENEMIES. 

EVENTS  and  developments  of  large  signifi 
cance  and  far-reaching  importance  made 
memorable  the  Presidency  of  Washing 
ton.     The  public  credit  and  whole  finan 
cial  system  of  the  United  States  was  created  by 
Hamilton  from  fiscal  chaos  and  founded  on  a  rock 
as  solid  and  enduring  as  the  earth  we  stand  on. 
The   permanent   seat   of  government  was   fixed. 
Political  parties  took  their  origin  and  adjusted 
themselves  on  lines  of  support  or  opposition  to 
the  policies  of  Washington.    Vermont,  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee  were  admitted  into  the  national 
Union. 

In  April,  1793,  the  neutrality  proclamation 
proved  the  wisdom  of  the  nation,  like  an  indi 
vidual,  attending  strictly  to  its  own  business.  The 
next  year  witnessed  the  ever-glorious  victory  of 
Anthony  Wayne  over  the  Indians  at  Fallen  Tim 
bers,  and  the  suppression  of  the  whisky  insurgents 
in  Pennsylvania,  The  Indian  peace  treaty  of 
Greenville  negotiated  by  Wayne;  the  Jay  treaty 
with  England  and  the  Pinckney  treaty  with  Spain, 
made  the  year  1795  a  year  to  be  remembered. 

74 


WASHINGTON'S   SECOND    TERM      75 

Less  agreeable  to  remember  is,  that,  in  1796,  we 
paid  the  plundering  Algerine  pirates  three-quar 
ters  of  a  million  dollars  for  the  ransom  of  pris 
oners,  for  bribes  and  for  the  recognition  of  our 
consul.  And  all  because  the  Oregon,  the  Olympia 
and  the  Brooklyn  were  not  then  afloat! 

It  is  perhaps  not  widely  known  that  the  infant 
Republic  had  a  desperate  struggle  to  survive  its 
infancy.  The  indisputable  historic  truth  is  that  it 
was  set  upon  and  assailed  by  as  evilly-designing  a 
combination  of  enemies  and  as  malign  a  concentra 
tion  of  enmities,  as  ever  assaulted  the  fairest  polit 
ical  work  of  human  hands. 

George  III,  down  to  the  date  of  his  insanity, 
entertained  a  deep-seated  dislike  for  his  disloyal 
American  subjects.  William  Pitt,  who  had  gone 
into  office  and  out  of  office  with  Lord  Shelburne, 
felt  none  of  his  patron's  ardent  desire  for  a  last 
ing  peace  with  America.  He  was  playing  politics 
for  a  permanent  tenure  of  office  and  hostility  to 
the  new  republic  was  then  the  winning  political 
card.  A  son  of  the  illustrious  statesman  and 
orator,  Lord  Chatham,  Pitt  was  reaping  the  benefit 
of  the  reaction  that  always  comes  when  a  truly 
great  man  is  treated  with  ingratitude  or  injustice. 
Besides  this  aid,  he  understood  the  power  of  the 
dinner  table  better  than  any  public  man  of  the  last 
century.  While  the  eloquent  Chatham  tried  to 
make  his  hopeful  son  a  great  orator,  he  succeeded 
in  making  him  only  a  great  declaimer  and  great 
politician.  The  British  cabinet  from  the  date  of 
Shelburne 's  retirement,  in  1783,  whether  the  con- 


76         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

trolling  spirit  was  Fox,  North  or  Pitt,  was  openly 
or  covertly  hostile  to  the  new  Eepublic.  Whether 
at  war  with  France,  with  Spain,  or  ostensibly  at 
peace,  England  was,  until  recent  years,  always  at 
war  with  this  country.  That  monarchy  long  tried 
to  maintain  a  cordon  of  stations  and  settlements 
to  connect  her  dominions  in  Canada  with  her 
dominions,  past  or  prospective,  in  Louisiana  and 
the  Florida s.  With  sinister  intent  she  sent  agents 
to  the  Mississippi,  to  Kentucky,  to  the  Indians, 
and  sent  fur  traders  everywhere,  to  foment  strife 
and  enmity  against  the  inheritors  of  freedom.  In 
holding  fast  to  the  military  posts,  contrary  to  ex 
press  treaty  stipulations,  the  unnatural  mother 
seemed  to  be  waiting  near  by  and  eagerly  expect 
ing  to  share  the  territorial  spoils  and  political 
plunder  from  her  offspring's  wrecked  Republic. 
To  witness  brave  men  battling  against  odds,  which 
is  said  to  inspire  the  sympathy  of  the  noblest  gods, 
seemed  not  to  develop  a  sympathetic  softness  in 
the  heart  of  Mother  England. 

France,  too,  was  plundering  our  ships  at  sea 
and  in  her  prize  courts,  with  all  the  alacrity  and 
inherited  skill  of  the  Norse  pirates  and  land  rob 
bers,  from  whom  the  inhabitants  of  Northern 
France  were  chiefly  descended.  This  once  most 
helpful  friend  was  sending  agents  to  Louisiana  to 
foment  insurrection  among  the  French  inhabitants 
there,  with  the  hope  of  profiting  by  the  downfall 
of  Spanish  power,  which  was  threatened  by  the 
virtual  closing  by  Spain  of  the  navigation  of  the 
great  continental  river.  From  and  after  the  death 


WASHINGTON'S   SECOND    TERM      77 

of  Count  de  Vergennes,  the  first,  firmest  and  most 
serviceable  friend  this  Republic  ever  had  in 
Europe,  the  policy  of  France  was  reversed  and 
that  country  was  made  antagonistic  by  Montmorin, 
Le  Brun  and  other  small  men,  who  were  filling  the 
high  place  of  the  great  Vergennes ;  while  still 
smaller  men,  such  as  Genet,  Fauchet  and  Adet, 
were  sent  to  bring  discredit  and  dishonor  upon 
France,  in  America.  "Citizen  Genet "  introduced 
here  the  bull-in-a-China-shop  brand  of  diplomacy. 
He  landed  at  Charleston ;  began  at  once  fitting  out 
privateers  and  opening  recruiting  offices ;  got  ves 
sels  to  sea  by  lying  about  their  character  and  des 
tination;  joined  the  Secretary  of  State  in  organ 
izing  Jacobin,  or  Democratic,  societies  in  Penn 
sylvania,  Kentucky  and  elsewhere,  which  clubs, 
Washington  declared,  "caused  and  encouraged" 
the  whisky  insurrection ;  wound  up  his  demagogue 
diplomacy  by  villifying  the  government  for  its 
strict  neutrality  and,  threatening  to  appeal  from 
the  President  to  the  people,  was  fired  out  of  the 
country  suddenly,  his  velocity  being  accelerated  by 
the  square-toed  boot  of  the  indignant  chief  magis 
trate. 

And  the  once  proud  but  to-day  prostrate  Spain 
joined  the  yelp  and  cry,  growing  loud  and  louder 
against  a  feeble  nation,  impoverished  and  ex 
hausted  by  a  desolating  war,  ready  to  seize  all  the 
territory  in  sight,  in  the  crash  that  would  follow 
the  failure  of  the  republican  experiment.  Godoy, 
the  despicable  paramour  of  the  queen  of  Spain, 
was  then  controlling  and  blighting  Spain's  desti- 


78         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

nies ;  Gardoqui  was  hostile  at  all  times  and  every 
where,  as  usual,  and  Governor  Miro  was  spending 
his  last  days  at  New  Orleans,  prior  to  his  promo 
tion,  in  tampering  with  and  tempting  the  hard- 
pressed  frontier  Americans  and  promising  them 
free  navigation,  free  trade  and  free  everything  if 
they  would  only  bow  down  and  worship,  not  Satan, 
but  Godoy  and  his  royal  mistress. 

Time  brings  its  retributions  and  mortals  are 
permitted  to  witness  examples  not  merely  of  poetic 
but  of  divine  justice.  The  Spain  which  snubbed 
Jay,  Short,  Carmichael  and  other  American 
agents,  a  little  more  than  a  century  ago,  is  about 
the  last  country  in  the  world  to  attempt  such  antics 
now.  And  singular  to  say,  the  three  leading  mon 
archies  of  Europe  that,  after  the  death  of  Franklin 
in  1790,  abused  our  patience  and  wronged  us  most, 
are  now  gently  playing  second  violin  to  Russia,, 
Germany  and  the  great  Republic,  which  have  taken 
their  stately  places  as  the  world's  most  potent 
powers  of  the  twentieth  century. 

Adding  to  these  complications,  nearly  sixty 
thousand  savages  in  the  Northwest  and  Southwest 
were  lurking  on  the  exposed  frontiers  of  the  new 
born  Union.  Hundreds  of  brave  men  had  gone 
down  under  their  murderous  rifles  and  tomahawks 
at  Blue  Licks,  at  the  defeat  of  Harmar,  and  on 
the  retreat  of  St.  Clair.  The  pioneer  families  on 
the  frontier  knew  not,  when  their  sole  support 
went  forth  each  day  to  win  bread  from  the  soil, 
that  they  would  ever  see  him  again  alive.  The 
nightly  war  whoop  startled  the  cattle  in  the  fields 


WASHINGTON'S   SECOND    TERM      79 

and  the  babes  in  the  cradle!  The  burning  of 
Washington's  personal  friend,  Colonel  Crawford, 
at  the  stake  and  before  the  eyes  of  the  infamous 
Simon  Girty,  called  for  an  end  to  such  unspeak 
able  atrocities. 

Yet  worse  in  one  sense  and  manifestly  more  dis 
tressing  than  the  hostilities  of  the  Englishmen,  the 
Frenchmen,  the  Spaniards,  and  the  Indians,  was 
the  war  made  on  the  first  administration  by  the 
Virginia  and  other  politicians.  That  public  men 
from  his  own  State,  who  knew  him  well  and  knew 
that  his  motives  were  lofty  and  pure,  should  im 
pugn  every  motive  and  oppose  every  act,  was  what 
the  high-bred  Washington  could  never  understand. 
An  unselfish  patriot  in  every  breath  that  he  drew, 
he  did  not  know  that  ambitious  men  played  a  cun 
ning  game  called  "politics,"  and  that  they  some 
times  played  for  as  high  stakes  as  his  own  high 
place.  Allured  by  such  a  dazzling  prize  as  the 
Presidency  for  eight  years,  what  politicians  of 
ambition  and  ability  would  not  play  any  concerted 
combination  game  to  win?  Three  Virginia  neigh 
bors  found  the  winter  evenings  long  when  far  from 
home  and  well  adapted  for  developing  compre 
hensive  schemes  for  their  mutual  advantage. 
When  the  facts  compel  us  to  affirm  that  Washing 
ton's  trusted  confidant,  Madison,  reversed  himself 
in  a  night  and  from  the  leader  of  the  administra 
tion  became  the  leader  of  the  opposition  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  we  need  not  recall  the 
baser  treachery  of  others  to  prove  the  first  Presi 
dent's  distracting  trials  and  mental  agonies.  Op- 


SO         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

posed  in  Cabinet,  Senate  and  House  in  every  line 
of  his  policy  by  the  three  most  controlling  men  of 
his  own  State,  it  need  hardly  cause  surprise  that 
groans  of  pain  escaped  him,  that  "He  would 
rather  be  in  his  grave  at  Mt.  Vernon  than  be  the 
emperor  of  the  world !"  The  Constitution  being 
on  trial,  the  fiercest  fight  came  on  its  right  inter 
pretation.  This  was  the  political  Valley  Forge 
that  Washington  passed  through,  compared  with 
the  sufferings  of  which  the  Valley  Forge  of  the 
Eevolution  was  the  seat  of  luxury!  But  with  the 
aid  of  Hamilton,  Jay,  Wilson  and  Ames,  he  gave 
the  interpretations  afterwards  declared  true  by 
Marshall,  Story  and  Webster,  and  from  which 
have  flowed  unnumbered  blessings  to  the  "more 
perfect"  and  more  stable  Union  and  to  every  State 
in  the  Louisiana  region. 

But  the  Lord  of  justice,  slow  to  wrath,  at  last 
allowed  his  hand  to  fall  heavily  upon  the  demons 
of  the  forest.  In  1794,  General  James  Robertson 
directed  Colonel  Whitely  and  Major  Orr  to  attack 
the  Chickamauga  savages  near  their  hiding  place 
on  the  Tennessee  River.  These  gallant  soldiers 
delivered  a  crushing  blow.  The  same  year,  Gen 
eral  Wayne,  aided  by  Piomingo  and  one  hundred 
and  twenty  Chickasaw  warriors,  gained  such  an 
overwhelming  victory  over  the  Northwestern 
tribes  that  they  were  all  eager  to  sue  for  peace. 
This  soldier-negotiator's  treaty  of  Greenville  put 
an  end  to  Indian  wars,  until  another  great  Indian 
fighter  and  treaty-maker,  Old  Tippecanoe,  nobly 
filled  Wayne's  high  place  in  history.  The  Jay 


WASHINGTON'S   SECOND    TERM      81 

treaty  of  1795  brought  about  the  peaceful  sur 
render  of  all  the  British  posts  in  June  and  July, 
1796,  and  put  an  end  to  the  British  depredations 
upon  our  commerce.  Although  violently  opposed 
by  the  Spanish  agents,  by  Citizen  Genet,  Citizen 
Jefferson,  Citizen  Monroe,  in  short,  by  all  the  for 
eign  and  domestic  enemies  of  the  Government,  it 
passed  the  Senate  by  a  vote  of  twenty  to  ten. 
Spanish  exactions,  plottings  and  outrages  were 
temporarily  ended  by  Thomas  Pinckney's  treaty 
of  October  27,  1795,  which  conceded  free  naviga 
tion  and  the  boundary,  on  the  south,  established 
by  the  treaty  of  1783  with  Great  Britain. 

Baron  de  Carondelet  became  governor  of  Louis 
iana  and  West  Florida  on  January  1,  1792.  The 
population  of  New  Orleans  at  the  end  of  that  year 
was  six  thousand.  The  revenues  were  but  seven 
thousand  dollars.  The  lighting  of  the  streets  and 
the  employment  of  watchmen  then  began.  The 
slave  trade  with  the  coast  of  Africa  was  encour 
aged  by  the  Spanish  king.  Trade  with  Philadel 
phia  was  favored  and  increased  by  Philadelphia 
merchants  establishing  branch  houses  in  New 
Orleans.  Some  six  or  more  subjects  of  French 
extraction,  who  showed  an  uncommon  interest 
about  1793  in  the  republican  movement  in  France, 
were  imprisoned  in  Havana  for  a  year.  Strong 
fortifications  were  built  above  and  below  the  city. 
Fort  St.  Philip  was  erected  by  this  governor  on 
the  Plaquemines.  Citizen  Genet's  two  expeditions 
planned  to  move  down  the  Mississippi,  caused 
some  alarm  in  1794,  but  soon  proved  abortive. 

6 


82         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

The  United  States  Government  suddenly  stopped 
his  active  recruiting  business.  Le  Moniteur  de  la 
Louisiane  made  its  appearance  this  year.  There 
was  also  completed  the  cathedral  built  by  Don 
Andre  Almonaster  at  his  own  expense.  A  hospital 
also  had  been  built  and  endowed  by  him. 

The  scheming  of  the  Marquis  de  Maisonrouge, 
Gayoso  de  Lemos  and  others,  with  Sebastian  and 
Power,  two  renegade  Americans,  to  separate  the 
western  country  from  the  United  States  came  to 
naught.  An  attempted  slave  insurrection  in  1795 
was  promptly  and  summarily  suppressed  by 
Baron  Carondelet  by  killing  twenty-five,  hanging 
fifty  and  flogging  as  many  more.  The  free  naviga 
tion  of  the  Mississippi  from  its  source  to  the  sea, 
under  the  treaty  of  San  Lorenzo,  was  reasonably 
enjoyed  by  the  up-river  Americans  for  three  or 
four  years.  With  a  view  of  inducing  French 
royalists  and  other  desirable  immigrants  to  settle 
in  Louisiana,  Governor  Carondelet  made  large 
grants  of  lands  to  Baron  de  Bastrop  and  other 
men  of  consequence.  One  of  these  important 
grants  of  mineral  lands  was  to  an  officer  of  the 
royal  navy  of  France,  who  had  lost  all  his  prop 
erty  in  the  vortex  of  the  French  revolution,  soon 
in  bloody  progress.  James  Ceran  De  Lassus,  the 
father  of  Governor  De  Lassus,  in  1796  first  ap 
pears  on  the  shifting  scene,  but  both  are  reserved 
to  be  discussed  in  the  story  of  Upper  Louisiana 
from  1790  to  1800. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

LOUISIANA  DURING  THE  TERM  OF  JOHN 
ADAMS. 

FORESIGHT      OF      HAMILTON  — MORE      TROUBLE      WITH 
SPAIN  — ST.  LOUIS  SERENCE. 

IF  we  knew  exactly  what  about  forty  of  our 
foremost  historic  men  have  said  and  have 
done,  we  would  then  know  the  most  valuable 
and  most  instructive  part  of  American  his 
tory.    Behind  all  great  events  are  great  men.    The 
man  or  men  who  made  the  Louisiana  treaty  and 
the  statesmen  who  were  behind  that  prodigious 
acquisition  are  in  the  first  group  of  the  benefactors 
of  their  Country. 

The  most  significant  act  or  utterance  by  Wash 
ington  along  the  line  of  this  large  subject  is  found 
in  the  Farewell  Address,  that  greatest  of  all  state 
papers,  unless  we  except  the  Constitution  itself. 
This  lofty  patriot  declares :  ' '  One  of  the  expedients 
which  the  partisans  of  faction  employ  toward 
strengthening  their  influence  by  local  discrimina 
tions  is  to  misrepresent  the  opinions  and  views  of 
rival  districts.  The  people  at  large  cannot  be  too 
much  on  their  guard  against  the  jealousies  which 
grow  out  of  these  misrepresentations.  They  tend 
to  render  alien  to  each  other  those  who  ought  to 
be  tied  together  by  fraternal  affection.  The  peo- 

S3 


84         THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

pie  of  the  western  country  have  lately  had  a  use 
ful  lesson  on  this  subject.  They  have  seen  in  the 
negotiation  by  the  executive,  and  in  the  unani 
mous  ratification  of  the  treaty  with  Spain  by  the 
Senate,  and  in  the  unusual  satisfaction  at  that 
event  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  a  decisive  proof 
how  unfounded  have  been  the  suspicions  instilled 
in  them  of  a  policy  in  the  Atlantic  States  and  in 
the  different  departments  of  the  general  govern 
ment,  hostile  to  their  interests  in  relation  to  the 
Mississippi."  In  these  parting  words  the  first 
President  obviously  refers  to  the  San  Lorenzo  or 
Pinckney  treaty  of  1795.  Although  issued  from 
Philadelphia,  like  all  of  Washington's  official 
papers,  it  is  dated  from  the  "United  States,"  to 
show  the  intense  and  unchanging  nationalism  of 
the  man. 

The  statesman  that  the  Father  of  his  Country 
most  leaned  upon  and  most  loved,  and  who  was 
placed  nearest  to  himself  in  war  and  in  peace,  was 
Alexander  Hamilton.  On  page  514  of  Hamilton's 
works,  volume  4,  issued  by  the  Putnams,  we  find 
these  pertinent  observations :  1 1  Who  can  say  how 
far  British  colonization  may  spread  southward 
and  down  the  west  side  of  the  Mississippi,  north 
ward  and  westward  into  the  vast  interior  regions 
toward  the  Pacific  Ocean?  Can  we  view  it  as  a 
matter  of  indifference  that  this  new  world  event 
ually  is  laid  open  to  our  enterprise,  to  an  enter 
prise  seconded  by  immense  advantages  already 
mentioned,  of  a  more  improved  state  of  industry? 
Can  we  be  insensible  that  the  precedent  furnishes 


TERM    OF   JOHN   ADAMS  85 

us  with  a  cogent  and  persuasive  argument  to 
bring  Spain  to  a  similar  arrangement?  And  can 
we  be  blind  to  the  great  interest  we  have  in  obtain 
ing  a  free  communication  with  all  the  great  terri 
tories  that  environ  our  country  from  the  St. 
Mary's  to  the  St.  Croix?"  This  public  utterance 
was  as  early  as  1795. 

On  January  26,  1799,  Hamilton  writes  a  letter 
from  New  York  to  Harrison  Gray  Otis  in  which 
these  remarkable  thoughts  occur:  "As  it  is  every 
moment  possible  that  the  project  of  taking  pos 
session  of  the  Floridas  and  Louisiana,  long  since 
attributed  to  France,  may  be  attempted  to  be  put 
in  execution,  it  is  very  important  that  the  execu 
tive  should  be  clothed  with  the  power  to  meet  and 
defeat  so  dangerous  an  enterprise.  Indeed,  if  it 
is  the  policy  of  France  to  leave  us  in  a  state  of 
semi-hostility,  'tis  preferable  to  terminate  it,  and 
by  taking  possession  of  those  countries  for  our 
selves,  to  obviate  the  mischief  of  their  falling  into 
the  hands  of  an  active  foreign  power,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  secure  to  the  United  States  the  advan 
tage  of  keeping  the  key  of  the  western  country. 
I  have  been  long  in  the  habit  of  considering  the 
acquisition  of  those  countries  as  essential  to  the 
permanency  of  the  Union,  which  I  consider  as 
very  important  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole." 
Here  our  wisest  practical  statesman  lays  down, 
four  years  and  three  months  before  the  Louisiana 
treaty  is  made,  four  vital  propositions:  First, 
That  we  should  take  possession  of  Louisiana  and 
the  Floridas  for  ourselves.  Second,  We  should 


86         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

not  allow  them  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  an  aggres 
sive  foreign  power.  Third,  The  United  States 
must  keep  the  key  to  the  up-river  western  country. 
Fourth,  That  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  and 
Florida  were  essential  to  the  perpetuity  of  the 
American  Union. 

This  indisputable  proof  of  the  earliest  and  clear 
est,  the  most  progressive  and  aggressive  declara 
tion  in  favor  of  the  possession  of  this  enormous 
contiguous  territory,  makes  Hamilton  the  chief 
promoter  of  the  Louisiana  acquisition,  unless  we 
find  that  prior  to  1803  other  statesmen  went 
farther  in  this  desirable  direction.  This  many- 
sided  genius  was  at  this  time  the  ranking  major- 
general  of  the  United  States  army,  next  in  author 
ity  to  Washington  by  that  matchless  hero's  own 
choice  and  insistence. 

The  Natchez  district,  confirmed  to  us  by  the 
Pinckney  treaty  with  Spain,  did  not  come  into  the 
full  possession  of  the  United  States  until  1798.  In 
a  message  to  Congress  dated  June  12,  1797,  Presi 
dent  Adams  said:  "This  country  is  rendered 
peculiarly  valuable  by  its  inhabitants,  who  are 
represented  to  amount  to  nearly  four  thousand, 
generally  well  affected  and  much  attached  to  the 
United  States  and  zealous  for  the  establishment 
of  a  government  under  their  authority.  I  there 
fore  recommend  the  erecting  of  a  government  in 
the  district  of  Natchez,  similar  to  that  established 
for  the  territory  northwest  of  the  River  Ohio,  but 
with  certain  modifications  relative  to  titles  or 
claims  of  land,  whether  of  individuals  or  com- 


TEEM    OF   JOHN   ADAMS  87 

panies,  or  to  claims  of  jurisdiction  of  any  indi 
vidual  State/' 

The  much-in-controversy  Natchez  district,  which 
became  the  Mississippi  territory,  was  bounded  on 
the  west  by  the  great  river,  on  the  south  by  the 
thirty-first  parallel  of  latitude  and  on  the  north 
by  a  line  drawn  due  east  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Yazoo  to  the  Chattahoochee  River,  its  eastern 
boundary. 

We  shall  only  epitomize  the  many  pages  of  his 
tory  relating  to  the  reluctant  transfer  by  Spain 
of  a  region  which  was  ours  by  plain  treaty  stipu 
lation.  It  was  a  tooth-pulling,  agonizing  process. 
The  American  commissioner  was  Colonel  Andrew 
Ellicott,  who  had  rendered  valuable  services  in 
laying  out  and  surveying  the  city  of  Washington. 
He  was  ably  assisted  in  his  delicate  mission  by  two 
brave  and  discreet  Regular  Army  officers,  Captain 
Isaac  Guion  and  Lieutenant  Piercy  S.  Pope. 

Colonel  Ellicott  established  his  camp  on  an 
eminence  in  Natchez,  about  five  hundred  yards 
from  the  well-garrisoned  Spanish  Fort  Panmure. 
Here  he  displayed  mast-high  the  flag  of  the 
United  States,  demanded  the  surrender  of  the  fort, 
and,  declining  the  many  pressing  invitations  to  go 
to  New  Orleans,  or  elsewhere,  announced  that  he 
would  not  move,  except  to  the  point  where  he  was 
to  begin  surveying  the  line  of  demarkation.  In 
the  meantime  General  Wayne  had  sent  Lieutenant 
Pope  with  forty  men  to  occupy  a  post  within  sup 
porting  distance.  The  gallant  Pope  reported  to 
the  resolute  Ellicott  his  readiness  for  action.  That 


88         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

both  soldiers  were  heroes  appears  from  a  letter  ad 
dressed  to  his  "Fellow-Citizens  of  the  District  of 
Natchez"  by  Pope,  approved  by  Ellicott,  in  which 
the  former  declares :  "I  will,  at  all  hazards,  pro 
tect  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  from  every 
act  of  hostility."  This  courageous  course  of 
action  in  the  presence  of  a  much  superior  Spanish 
force  brought  a  happy  issue  out  of  one  of  the  most 
serious  of  our  many  differences  with  Spain. 
Gayoso  de  Lemos,  the  Spanish  commissioner,  who 
became  governor  of  Louisiana  while  these  troubles 
were  pending,  was  in  artifice,  procrastination  and 
prevarication  a  past  grand  master.  To  postpone 
delivering  the  district  and  to  stave  off  the  inevit 
able  hour,  he  said  he  had  to  go  to  New  Orleans; 
pretended  to  have  no  instructions;  had  asked  for 
instructions  and  must  wait  their  arrival;  was 
threatened  with  an  invasion  from  Canada;  was 
liable  to  an  attack  by  Great  Britain  by  sea,  and  so 
on  ad  infinitum.  The  plain  truth  was  he  was  try 
ing  to  incite  the  Indians  to  make  war  on  us;  he 
was  still  doling  out  bribes  to  those  despicable 
traitors,  Thomas  Powers,  Benjamin  Sebastian  and 
other  base  deserters.  Both  he  and  Carondelet  were 
talking  and  playing  anti-administration  politics 
like  Giles,  Taylor  and  the  worst  Virginia  ringsters, 
and  lastly,  the  versatile  Spaniard  was  hoping  and 
praying  to  profit  by  the  death  of  the  patriot 
Wayne,  as  that  would  bring  the  old  pensioner  of 
Spain,  General  Wilkinson,  in  chief  command.  It 
is  due  to  Wilkinson  to  relate  that  he  repulsed  these 
last  overtures,  his  inordinate  ambition  beins:  satis- 


TERM   OF   JOHN   ADAMS  89 

fied  with  the  prospective  command  of  the  Amer 
ican  army,  seemingly  for  life.  Not  so  selfishly 
patriotic  at  this  time  was  another  self-condemned 
man,  Senator  William  Blount  of  Tennessee,  who 
was  found  guilty  of  proffering  aid  to  the  British 
forces  in  Quebec  while  they  were  contem 
plating  a  hostile  movement  upon  Louisiana  and 
New  Orleans.  Senator  Blount  was  promptly  ex 
pelled  from  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  by  a 
unanimous  vote.  In  contrast  with  these  men  of 
little  faith  in  their  Country  or  countrymen  was 
Captain  Isaac  Guion,  a  veteran  of  the  Revolution, 
who  commanded  the  reinforcements  sent  to  the  dis 
turbed  district  and  who  determined  to  carry  the 
Spanish  forts  by  assault  if  they  were  not  evacu 
ated  on  or  before  a  certain  date,  which  he  fixed 
at  April  1,  1798.  The  garrisons  of  the  two  forts 
were  lodged  by  the  Spaniards  for  safety  in  Fort 
Panmure.  The  state  of  local  feeling  being  at  high 
tension,  about  midnight  on  March  29  the  drums 
were  heard  of  the  troops  marching  to  the  river 
bank,  and  before  daylight  the  last  soldier  of  Spain 
had  embarked  for  New  Orleans.  It  was  more  like 
a  precipitated  retreat  than  a  peaceful  evacuation. 
The  survey  of  the  lines  of  demarkation  at  once 
proceeded  under  Colonel  Ellicott,  with  his  assist 
ants  and  military  escort.  Winthrop  Sargent  be 
came  by  appointment  of  John  Adams  the  first  ter 
ritorial  governor.  Here  ended,  not  the  first,  but 
perhaps  the  worst  lesson  in  Spanish  perfidy.  Con 
temporaneous  with  this  falling  back  on  land  before 
an  inferior  force,  Spanish  privateers  were  seizing 


90         TEE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

our  unarmed  merchant  vessels,  confiscating  their 
cargoes  and  marching  their  officers  and  sailors  in 
manacles  through  the  public  streets  in  Spanish 
towns  to  dungeons  where  died  the  victims  of  the 
dreadful  Inquisition.  The  conduct  of  France  was 
no  better.  In  his  message  of  December  8,  Presi 
dent  Adams  clearly  states  the  situation:  "The 
decree  of  the  directory,  alleged  to  be  intended  to 
restrain  the  depredation  of  French  cruisers  on  our 
commerce,  has  not  given  and  cannot  give  any  re 
lief.  It  enjoins  them  to  conform  to  all  the  laws 
of  France  relative  to  cruising  and  prizes,  while 
these  laws  are  themselves  the  sources  of  the  depre 
dations  of  which  we  have  so  long,  so  justly,  and 
so  fruitlessly  complained. "  The  "cut- throat 
directory,"  drunk  with  blood  and  democracy,  was 
now  threatening  war  and  destruction  and  was  roll 
ing  up  the  four  million  depredation  debt  for  which 
France  gave  the  United  States  ample  money  and 
territorial  indemnity  in  1803. 

Recurring  to  the  history  of  Louisiana,  we  find 
that  in  January,  1798,  Governor  Gayoso  issued  to 
his  lower  officials  some  rather  nonsensical  instruc 
tions,  as  for  example:  "Liberty  of  conscience  is 
not  to  be  extended  beyond  the  first  generation ;  the 
children  of  the  emigrants  (sic)  must  be  Catholic; 
in  Upper  Louisiana  no  settler  is  to  be  admitted  who 
is  not  a  fanner  or  a  merchant;  commandants  are 
to  watch  that  no  preacher  of  any  religion  but  the 
Catholic  comes  into  the  province ;  no  land  is  to  be 
granted  to  a  trader;  if  the  grantee  owes  debts  to 
the  province,  the  products  of  the  first  four  crops 


TERM   OF   JOHN   ADAMS  91 

are  to  be  applied  to  their  discharge  in  preference 
to  that  of  debts  due  abroad. " 

The  most  distinguished  visitors  of  this  year 
were  the  Duke  of  Orleans  and  the  Duke  of  Mon- 
tausier,  the  grandsons  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans, 
who  was  regent  of  France  under  Louis  XV.  Upon 
the  death  of  Governor  Gayoso  on  July  18,  1799, 
Don  Maria  Vidal  became  acting  civil  governor. 
The  Marquis  de  Casa-Calvo  was  sent  over  from 
Cuba  to  act  as  military  governor.  About  this  time 
uncommon  agitation  was  excited  in  the  States  of 
Kentucky,  Tennessee  and  regions  adjacent  by 
notice  being  given  that  New  Orleans  could  no 
longer  be  used  as  a  place  of  deposit  by  up-river 
Americans  because  the  three-year  treaty  limit  had 
expired.  A  protracted  correspondence  was  soon 
entered  upon  by  Secretary  of  State  Pickering  with 
satisfactory  results.  The  king  overruled  his  sub 
ordinates.  The  port  of  New  Madrid  was  in  1799 
made  a  part  of  Upper  Louisiana. 

Don  Carlos  Dehault  De  Lassus,  now  the  com 
mandant  general  of  the  last  named  province,  re 
ported  the  result  of  the  census  taken  on  the  31st 
of  December  to  be : 

St.  Louis,  nine  hundred  and  twenty-five;  St. 
Genevieve,  nine  hundred  and  forty-nine;  St. 
Charles,  eight  hundred  and  seventy-five;  Caron- 
delet,  one  hundred  and  eighty- four ;  St.  Fernando, 
two  hundred  and  seventy-six;  Marias  des  Liards, 
three  hundred  and  seventy-six ;  Maramec,  one  hun 
dred  and  fifteen;  St.  Andrews,  three  hundred 
and  ninety-three ;  New  Bourbon,  five  hundred  and 


92         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

sixty;  Cape  Girardeau,  five  hundred  and  twenty- 
one  ;  New  Madrid,  seven  hundred  and  eighty-two ; 
Little  Meadows,  forty-nine.  Total,  six  thousand 
and  twenty-eight.  There  were  in  round  figures  five 
thousand  whites,  two  hundred  free  colored  and  less 
than  nine  hundred  slaves.  The  value  of  the  deer 
skins,  lead,  etc.,  shipped  to  New  Orleans  in  1799, 
amounted  to  seventy-three  thousand  one  hundred 
and  seventy-six  dollars. 

On  October  1,  1800,  the  important  treaty  of  San 
Ildefonso,  conveying  Louisiana  to  France,  was 
concluded  between  the  king  of  Spain  and  the  First 
Consul  of  France,  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  As  this 
belongs  to  the  class  of  secret  treaties  and  did  not 
take  effect,  so  far  as  it  related  to  Louisiana,  until 
the  following  March,  its  consideration  relates  to 
the  next  administration.  Although  this  was  a 
treaty  in  which  we  had  no  hand  or  part,  it  un 
doubtedly  essentially  modified  the  history  of  this 
Republic.  Spanish  procrastination  and  aggran 
dizing  power  would  have  postponed  our  crossing 
the  Mississippi  until  a  much  later  date. 

It  is  a  matter  of  general  regret  that  the  mate- 
rials  for  the  history  of  Upper  Louisiana  are  so 
meager  in  extent.  The  well  and  favorably  known 
John  B.  Henderson  of  Missouri  has  expressed  the 
opinion  that  the  Spanish  archives  and  the  official 
records  of  the  chief  officers  at  St.  Louis  would 
prove  to  be  the  best  sources  of  historical  informa 
tion.  But  these  formal  documents  it  may  be  sug 
gested  would  hardly  be  suitable  or  adequate  for  a 
popular  narrative.  There  has  been  a  failure  some- 


TERM    OF   JOHN   ADAMS  93 

where  to  collect  and  preserve  the  facts  relating  to 
the  many  interesting  incidents  and  events  that 
must  have  happened  during  the  long  Spanish  occu 
pation  of  so  large  a  domain. 

During  the  commandantship  of  Zenon  Trudeau, 
which  ended  in  1798,  immigration  was  wisely  en 
couraged,  fur  trading  was  extended  far  into  the 
interior  and  far  up  the  Missouri,  and  St.  Louis 
was  made  more  attractive  by  newer  and  better 
houses  and  other  structures.  Commandant  De 
Lassus.  who  followed  Trudeau,  was  a  high-toned 
gentleman  by  birth  and  breeding,  and  favored 
whatever  measures  tended  to  promote  the  perma 
nent  welfare  of  the  people  and  their  province. 
Down  to  the  end  of  John  Adams's  administration, 
March  4,  1801,  Upper  Louisiana  was  exempt  from 
all  the  disturbing  agitations,  the  threatened  inva 
sions,  the  old  and  new  world  complications,  which 
kept  the  lower  province  in  a  continuous  ferment. 
And  those  whose  lives  partook  of  the  serenity  of 
the  forest  primeval,  happily  escaped  the  reason- 
and-reputation-destroying  partisan  strifes  raging 
in  the  new  Republic,  whose  extremes  were  meas 
ured  by  the  exclamations  of  Hamilton  and  Macon 
on  the  death  of  Washington:  "America  has  lost 
her  Savior— I  a  father,"  and,  "I  am  glad  he  is 
dead!  We  could  not  pull  him  down!"  The  alien 
and  sedition  laws ;  the  sedition-breeding  Kentucky 
Resolutions  of  '98:  the  scandalous  Mazzei  letter 
and  the  peace  negotiations  with  France  are  even 
now  too  hot  and  explosive  to  handle. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

LOUISIANA    DURING    THE    YEARS    1801 
AND  1802. 

TRANSFEK      FROM      SPAIN      TO      FRANCE  —  LIVINGSTON, 
NAPOLEON,   JEFFERSON,   MADISON. 

A  PLACE  of  honor  in  our  story  must  be 
found  for  a  hero  and  a  patriot,  Andrew 
Jackson,  who  has  had  much  to  do  with  the 
growth  and  glory  of  Tennessee  and  who 
won  the  grandest  victory  over  the  veterans  of 
Wellington,  at  New  Orleans,  ever  gained  in  any 
part  of  ancient  Louisiana's  wide  dominion.  Pale, 
sallow  and  shaking  like  an  aspen  leaf  with  the 
chills  incident  to  a  malarial  fever,  General  Jack 
son's  prodigious  exertions  and  activity  during  the 
anxious  weeks  preceding  the  memorable  battle,  can 
be  likened  to  nothing  but  Robert  R.  Livingston's 
sleepless  toils  and  efforts  to  gain  for  his  country 
the  identical  territory  the  heroic  invalid  was  then 
struggling  with  the  defensive  might  of  a  Hector 
to  protect.  Jackson  had  been  promoted  from  the 
National  House  of  Representatives  to  the  United 
States  Senate,  for  his  complete  success  in  getting 
the  brave  Tennessee  volunteers  paid  for  their 
perilous  services  against  the  Indians.  In  a  letter 
from  Philadelphia,  written  in  1798  when  about 
resigning  his  Senatorship  to  accept  a  State  judge- 

94 


LOUISIANA    IN   1801-1802  95 

ship,  this  interesting  sidelight  is  thrown  upon  a 
world-renowned  character:  "France  has  finally 
concluded  a  treaty  with  the  emperor  and  the  king 
of  Sardinia,  and  is  now  turning  her  force  toward 
Great  Britain.  Bonaparte,  with  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  troops  (used  to  conquer),  is  ordered 
on  the  coast,  and  called  the  army  of  England.  Do 
not  then  be  surprised  if  my  next  letter  should  an 
nounce  a  revolution  in  England.  Should  Bona 
parte  make  a  landing  on  the  English  shore, 
tyranny  will  be  humbled,  a  throne  crushed  and  a 
republic  will  spring  from  the  wreck  and  millions 
of  distressed  people  restored  to  the  rights  of  man 
by  the  conquering  arm  of  Bonaparte. ' ' 

Thomas  Jefferson  having  been  chosen  chief 
magistrate  by  the  House  of  Kepresentatives  on 
February  17,  1801,  through  the  potent  influence, 
unselfishly  employed,  of  his  chief  political  adver 
sary,  General  Hamilton,  was  sworn  into  office  by 
another  political  opponent,  the  great  Chief  Justice, 
John  Marshall.  Neither  in  the  first  inaugural  of 
March  4,  in  the  first  annual  message  of  December 
8,  nor  in  any  proclamations  or  special  messages  of 
the  year  1801,  does  Mr.  Jefferson  allude  to  the 
Louisiana  business.  But  in  a  semi-official  letter  of 
July  13,  to  William  C.  C.  Claiborne,  whom  he  had 
appointed  governor  of  the  Mississippi  Territory, 
in  preference  to  il  Judge "  Andrew  Jackson,  who 
was  an  applicant  for  the  place,  the  President  says : 
"With  respect  to  Spain  our  dispositions  are  sin 
cerely  amiable  and  even  affectionate.  We  consider 
her  possessions  of  the  adjacent  country  as  most 


96         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

favorable  to  our  interests,  and  should  see  with 
extreme  pain  any  other  nation  substituted  for 
them.  In  all  communications  therefore  with  their 
officers,  conciliation  and  mutual  accommodation 
are  to  be  mainly  attended  to.  Everything  irritat 
ing  to  be  avoided,  everything  friendly  to  be  done 
for  them.  The  most  fruitful  source  of  misunder 
standing  will  be  the  conduct  of  their  and  our  peo 
ple  at  New  Orleans.  Temper  and  justice  will  be 
the  best  guides  through  these  intricacies.  Should 
France  get  possession  of  that  country,  it  will  be 
more  to  be  lamented  than  remedied  by  us,  as  it 
will  furnish  ground  for  profound  consideration  on 
our  part,  how  best  to  conduct  ourselves  in  that 
case.  It  would  of  course  be  the  subject  of  fresh 
communications  to  you. ' '  As  Spain  closed  against 
us  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  the  next  year, 
this  was  clearly  a  case  of  misplaced  affection. 
And  as  for  France,  the  sequel  shows  that  the 
executive  was  diametrically  wrong  in  the  line  of 
his  lamentations.  In  nominating  Chancellor 
Robert  R.  Livingston,  "an  able  and  honorable 
man,"  to  quote  the  words  of  the  President,  as 
minister  plenipotentiary  to  France,  Jefferson 
made  probably  the  best  appointment  of  his  entire 
administration.  He  was,  except  for  his  serious 
deafness,  an  ideal  diplomatic  agent.  Washington 
selected  him  for  the  same  post  in  1794,  but  was 
obliged  to  fall  back  on  James  Monroe,  his  third 
choice.  Monroe  consorted  with  the  more  or  less 
crime-stained  successors  of  Danton,  Marat,  Robes 
pierre,  and  other  "citizen  assassins,"  so  cordially, 


LOUISIANA    IN   1801-1802  97 

that  he  had  to  be  recalled  for  disobeying  his  in 
structions. 

The  references  of  Secretary  of  State,  Madison, 
to  our  relations  with  Spain,  England  and  France, 
were  also  in  clear  conflict  with  the  current  of  actual 
subsequent  events.     On  June  15,  1801,  Madison 
writes  to  Rufus  King,  our  minister  to  England: 
"I  cannot  but  briefly  add,  however,  that  we  have 
the  mortification  to  find  that,  notwithstanding  all 
the  forbearances  and  endeavors  of  the  United  States 
for  the  establishment  of  just  and  friendly  relations 
with  Great  Britain,   accounts  continue  to  arrive 
from  different  quarters  of  accumulating  trespasses 
on  our  commerce  and  neutral  rights. "    It  is  some 
what  singular  that  just  ten  months  later  the  admin 
istration  was  favoring,  as  will  appear,  an  offensive 
and  aggressive  alliance  with  these  same  British 
trespassers  on  our  commerce,  in  a  war  of  expul 
sion  against  France.     On  June  9  Madison  wrote 
to  Charles  Pinckney,  the  new  minister  to  Spain: 
"The   spoliations    committed   on   our   trade,   for 
which  Spain  is  held  responsible,  are  known  to  be 
already  of  very  great  amount,  and  it  is  said  to 
be  apprehended  that  they  may  not  have  yet  ceased. 
Hitherto  redress  has  been  sought,  some 
times  in  tribunals  of  justice,  sometimes  by  applica 
tions  to  the  government,  and  sometimes  to  both 
these  modes.     Experience  has  sufficiently  shown 
that  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  nor  both,  can 
be  relied  on  for  obtaining  full  justice  for  our  in 
jured  citizens.    Some  other  effort,  therefore,  is  due 
to  the  sufferers,  and,  let  me  add,  to  the  dignity  of 

7 


98         THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

the  United  States,  which  must  always  feel  the  in 
sults  offered  to  the  rights  of  individual  citizens." 
But  on  July  13,  thirty-four  days  later,  the  Presi 
dent  strangely  forgets  about  what  is  due  i  i  the  suf 
ferers"  and  "the  dignity  of  the  United  States" 
while  assuring  Governor  Claiborne  of  his  "affec 
tionate  disposition  toward  Spain."  Truly  a  sad 
case  of  unrequited  affections.  During  the  whole  of 
the  year  1801  and  until  March,  1802,  the  govern 
ment  at  Washington  remained  wholly  ignorant  of 
the  terms  of  the  treaty  of  San  Ildefonso,  signed 
October  1,  1800,  by  the  Prince  of  Peace  and  Mar 
shal  Berthier,  minister  of  France  at  Madrid.  This 
significant  treaty  transferred  to  France  all  that 
vast  and  vaguely  defined  territory  known  as 
Louisiana  which  France  had  turned  over  to  Spain 
in  1762.  Bonaparte's  initial  policy  and  earliest 
ambition  was  to  restore  to  France  all  her  lost 
former  possessions.  But  it  is  the  privilege  of 
great  men  to  be  inconsistent  and  also  unsuccessful. 
It  is  a  matter  of  indisputable  historic  fact  that  he 
restored  nothing  that  remained  restored  and  never 
added  a  foot  of  territory  permanently  to  France; 
on  the  contrary  he  lost  Belgium  and  the  left  bank 
of  the  Ehine.  The  Duke  of  Parma  and  the  infanta 
of  the  queen  and  Charles  IV  of  Spain  must  be  pro 
vided  for.  To  give  consequence  and  dignity  to 
the  daughter  of  royalty  and  to  honor  one  of 
Spain's  illustrious  families,  a  great  partly  devel 
oped  empire  was  offered  by  Spain  to  France  for 
the  uncertain  sovereignty  of  the  petty  kingdom  of 
Tuscany.  Its  priceless  art  treasures  and  historic 


LOUISIANA    IN   1801-1802  99 

memories  probably  did  not  weigh  much  on  either 
side  of  the  scale.  The  earlier  secret  treaty  took 
effect  March  21,  1801.  Napoleon  prepared  to  dis 
patch  Marshal  Victor,  with  five  battalions  of  in 
fantry  and  the  required  complement  of  cavalry 
and  artillery,  but  the  dashing  Victor  and  his  forces 
with  three  brigadier  generals  never  sailed  to  New 
Orleans. 

Not  until  April  18,  1802,  does  President  Jeffer 
son  wake  up  to  the  large  significance  of  the  Louis 
iana  question.  In  a  letter  of  that  date  to  Robert 
E.  Livingston,  our  envoy  extraordinary  to  France, 
he  gives  strong  expression  to  some  elastic  views, 
but  elastic  unfortunately  in  the  wrong  direction: 
"The  cession  of  Louisiana  and  the  Floridas  by 
Spain  to  France  works  most  sorely  on  the  United 
States.  *  *  *  The  day  that  France  takes  pos 
session  of  New  Orleans  fixes  the  sentence  which  is 
to  restrain  her  forever  within  her  low  watermark. 
It  seals  the  union  of  two  nations  who  in  conjunc 
tion  can  maintain  exclusive  possession  of  the 
ocean.  From  that  moment  we  must  marry  our 
selves  to  the  British  fleet  and  nation.  We  must 
turn  all  our  attentions  to  a  maritime  force,  for 
which  our  resources  place  us  on  very  high 
grounds;  and  having  formed  and  cemented  to 
gether  a  power  which  may  render  reinforcement 
of  her  settlements  here  impossible  to  France,  make 
the  first  cannon  which  shall  be  fired  in  Europe  the 
signal  for  tearing  up  any  settlement  she  may  have 
made,  and  for  holding  the  two  continents  of 


100       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

America  in  sequestration  for  the  common  purposes 
of  the  United  British  and  American  nations. " 

Here  is  expansion  with  an  awful  vengeance !  It 
embraces,  North,  South,  Central  America  and  all 
"  the  oceans !  By  October  10  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Liv 
ingston,  Mr.  Jefferson  distinctly  becomes  an 
ardent  friend  of  peace  with  France :  ' i  We  see  all 
the  disadvantageous  consequences  of  taking  a  side, 
and  shall  be  forced  into  it  only  by  a  more  disagree 
able  alternative;  in  which  event,  we  must  conter- 
vail  the  disadvantages  by  measures  which  will 
give  us  splendor  and  power,  but  not  as  much  hap 
piness  as  our  present  system.  We  wish,  therefore, 
to  remain  well  with  France.  But  we  see  that  no 
consequences,  however  ruinous  to  them,  can  secure 
us  with  certainty  against  the  extravagance  of  her 
present  rulers.  I  think,  therefore,  that  while  we 
do  nothing  which  the  first  nation  on  earth  would 
deem  crouching,  we  had  better  give  to  all  our  com 
munications  with  them  a  very  mild,  complaisant, 
and  even  friendly  complexion  but  always  inde 
pendent." 

By  November  29,  the  President's  mood  changes 
again  somewhat,  as  shown  in  a  letter  to  Thomas 
Cooper:  "It  delights  me  to  find  that  there  are 
persons  who  still  think  that  all  is  not  lost  in 
France.  That  their  restoration  from  a  limited  to 
an  unlimited  despotism  is  but  to  give  themselves 
a  new  impulse.  But  I  see  not  how  or  when.  The 
press,  the  only  tocsin  of  a  nation,  is  completely 
silenced  there,  and  all  means  of  general  effort 
taken  away."  This  rough  drive  at  Napoleon 


LOUISIANA    IN   1801-1802  101 

Bonaparte  is  tlie  brilliant  farewell  stroke  of  policy 
for  the  year  before  the  great  treaty. 

In  January,  1802,  the  alert  Livingston  learns 
positively  of  the  secret  treaty  between  France  and 
Spain  and  forwards  a  copy  of  the  Spanish  treaty 
to  his  government.  On  February  26,  he  writes 
from  Paris :  "On  the  subject  of  Louisiana,  I  have 
nothing  new.  The  establishment  is  disapproved 
by  every  statesman  here  as  one  that  will  occasion 
a  great  waste  of  men  and  money,  excite  enmities 
with  us,  and  produce  no  possible  advantage  to  the 
Nation.  But  it  is  a  scheme  to  which  the  First  Con 
sul  is  extremely  attached,  and  must  of  course  be 
supported.  You  will  find,  by  the  enclosed  note, 
that  I  have  pressed  an  explanation  on  the  subject, 
but  I  have  received  no  answer.  I  have  it,  however, 
through  a  friend,  from  the  First  Consul,  that  it  is 
by  no  means  their  intention  to  obstruct  the  naviga 
tion  of  the  Mississippi  or  violate  our  treaty  with 
Spain." 

The  Secretary  of  State,  in  a  letter  to  Livingston 
of  May  1,  1802,  begins  to  realize  the  large  import 
of  Louisiana:  "The  conduct  of  the  French  gov 
ernment,  in  paying  so  little  attention  to  its  obliga,- 
tions  under  the  treaty,  in  neglecting  its  debts  to 
our  citizens,  in  giving  no  answers  to  your  com 
plaints  and  expostulations,  which  you  say  is  the 
case  with  those  of  other  foreign  ministers  also,  and 
particularly  in  its  reserve  as  to  Louisiana,  which 
tacitly  contradicts  the  language  first  held  to  you 
by  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Relations,  gives  tokens 
as  little  auspicious  to  the  true  interests  of  France 


102       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

herself,  as  to  the  rights  and  just  objects  of  the 
United  States.  *  *  The  cession  of  Louis 
iana  to  France  becomes  daily  more  and  more  a 
source  of  painful  apprehension.  *  *  You 

will  also  pursue,  by  prudent  means,  the  inquiry 
into  the  extent  of  the  cession,  particularly  whether 
it  includes  the  Floridas  as  well  as  New  Orleans, 
and  endeavor  to  ascertain  the  price  at  which  these, 
if  included  in  the  cession,  would  be  yielded  to  the 
United  States." 

It  must  be  observed  here  that  Madison  turns 
his  mind  only  to  the  comparatively  unimportant 
east  side  of  the  river,  not  the  unbounded  west  side. 
In  a  dispatch  of  May  11,  to  Pinckney,  he  shows 
clearly  Jefferson's  attitude:  " Should  the  cession 
actually  fail  from  this,  or  any  other  cause,  and 
Spain  retain  New  Orleans  and  the  Floridas,  I  re 
peat  to  you  the  wish  of  the  President,  that  every 
effort  and  address  be  employed  to  obtain  the 
arrangement  by  which  the  territory  on  the  east 
side  of  the  Mississippi,  including  New  Orleans, 
may  be  ceded  to  the  United  States,  and  the  Mis 
sissippi  made  a  common  boundary,  with  a  common 
use  of  its  navigation  for  them  and  Spain.  The 
inducements  to  be  held  out  to  Spain  were  inti 
mated  in  your  original  instructions  on  this  point. 
I  am  charged  by  the  President  now  to  add,  that 
you  may  not  only  receive  and  transmit  a  proposi 
tion  of  guaranty  of  lier  territory  beyond  the  Mis 
sissippi,  as  a  condition  of  her  ceding  to  the  United 
States  the  territory,  including  New  Orleans,  on 
this  side,  but,  in  case  it  be  necessary,  may  make 


LOUISIANA    IN   1801-1802  103 

the  proposition  yourself,  in  the  forms  required  by 
our  Constitution." 

This  very  significant  dispatch  is  found  on  page 
517  of  American  State  Papers,  Volume  II,  of 
Foreign  Kelations ;  also  in  the  archives  of  the  De 
partment  of  State.  It  is  an  official  document 
which  the  writers  of  our  school  histories  and  the 
authors  of  the  Hosmer-Binger  works  of  fiction 
appear  never  to  have  seen.  It  proves  that  Mr. 
Jefferson,  instead  of  bringing  about  the  Louisiana 
acquisition  single-handed,  was  one  of  the  two  men 
who  were  ready  and  willing  to  prevent  forever  this 
acquisition  by  a  consti  tutional ' '  guaranty ' '  or  pro 
hibition  !  We  refer  of  course  to  the  vast  territory 
on  the  west  side  of  the  Mississippi,  which  is  the 
only  domain  worthy  of  serious  discussion. 

Minister  Pinckney  tried  in  vain  to  carry  out 
these  ominous  instructions,  but  fortunately  could 
not,  because  Spain  was  hesitating  and  in  doubt 
whether  she  had  any  Floridas  to  sell  or  convey. 
In  France,  Livingston  was  blandly  told  that  the 
Floridas  did  not  belong  to  the  lands  transferred. 
With  all  his  virtuous  patience  exhausted  Living 
ston  writes  home  in  September:  " There  never 
was  a  government  in  which  less  could  be  done  by 
negotiation  than  here.  There  is  no  people,  no  leg 
islature,  no  counsellors.  One  man  is  everything. 
He  never  asks  advice,  and  never  hears  it  unasked. 
His  ministers  are  mere  clerks ;  and  his  legislature 
and  counsellors  parade  officers/'  On  October  26, 
1802,  Livingston  writes  an  important  dispatch  to 
the  President,  informing  him  that  the  Mississippi 


104       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

business,  though  the  officers  are  appointed,  and  the 
army  under  orders,  has  met  with  a  check.  He 
gives  interesting  details  of  a  conversation  he  had 
two  days  before  with  Joseph  Bonaparte,  who  as 
sured  him  he  had  read  a  long  memoir  on  Louisiana 
placed  in  his  hands  by  our  minister,  and  that  his 
brother,  the  First  Consul,  had  done  likewise: 
"Joseph  Bonaparte  asked  me  whether  we  should 
prefer  the  Floridas  to  Louisiana?  I  told  him  that 
there  was  no  comparison  in  their  value,  but  that 
we  had  no  wish  to  extend  our  boundary  across  the 
Mississippi  or  give  color  to  the  doubts  that  had 
been  entertained  of  the  moderation  of  our  views; 
that  all  we  sought  was  security,  and  not  extension 
of  territory." 

December  23,  Secretary  Madison  sends  to  Paris 
this  last  dispatch  of  the  year  1802 :  "In  the  latter 
end  of  last  month  we  received  information  from 
New  Orleans  of  the  interdiction  of  the  deposits 
there  for  our  merchandise,  stipulated  by  the  treaty 
with  Spain,  without  an  equivalent  establishment 
being  assigned.  *  *  *  Should  it  be  revoked 
before  the  time  for  the  descent  of  the  boats  in  the 
spring,  both  the  injury  and  irritation  proceeding 
from  it  will  be  greatly  increased. ' '  The  Secretary 
concludes :  ' '  That,  whilst  we  have  no  clear  founda 
tion  on  which  to  impute  this  infraction,  to  orders 
from  the  Spanish  government,  it  would  be  con 
trary  to  the  duty,  policy  and  character  of  our  own 
to  resort  for  redress  in  the  first  instance  to  the  use 
of  force."  On  the  same  date,  Livingston,  stirred 
to  a  state  of  tension  over  the  pregnant  events  com- 


LOUISIANA    IN   1801-1802  105 

ing  on  and  making  a  last  appeal  to  ward  off  ca 
lamity  to  his  Country,  hurriedly  writes  home: 
"The  armament  has  not  yet  sailed;  Florida  not 
ceded;  more  hesitation  and  doubt  on  the  subject 
than  I  have  yet  heard.  A  private  memoir  under 
the  Consul's  eye,  touching  a  string  that  has 
alarmed  them.  I  cannot  now  explain.  The  min 
ister  knows  nothing  of  this.  Set  on  foot  a  negotia 
tion  fixing  our  bounds  with  Britain,  but  by  no 
means  conclude  until  you  hear  from  me  that  all 
hope  here  is  lost.  *  *  *  Do  not  absolutely  de 
spair,  though  you  may  have  no  great  reason  to 
hope  should  New  Orleans  be  possessed  by  a  small 
force." 

It  makes  one's  blood  tingle  to  see  this  one  sa 
gacious  American  patriot  contending  single- 
handed  for  the  right,  against  Talleyrand,  Berthier, 
Marbois,  and  the  Hero  of  Marengo  with  a  nation  in 
arms  behind  him !  Can  it  be  that  the  learned  jur 
ist,  the  trained  diplomatist,  the  veteran  statesman, 
is  more  than  a  match  for  the  young  and  yet  inex 
perienced  first  consul!  So  it  would  seem.  The 
Franklins,  the  Livingstons  and  the  Websters,  in 
their  own  field  of  diplomacy,  were  never  out-gen- 
eraled  or  out-fought 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE  GREAT    TREATY  OF   APRIL  30,  1803. 

THE   CORRESPONDENCE  PRECEDING  IT  — WHO   MADE  IT. 

TO  a  right  understanding  of  the  Louisiana 
Purchase  treaty  of  1803,  the  letters  that 
passed  to  our  ministers  in  France  and 
Spain  are  of  vital  importance.  On  Jan 
uary  10,  1803,  the  Secretary  of  State  wrote  to 
Charles  Pinckney:  "You  will  find  also  that  the 
House  has  passed  a  resolution  explicitly  declaring 
that  the  stipulated  rights  of  the  United  States  on 
the  Mississippi  will  be  inviolably  maintained.  The 
disposition  of  many  members  was  to  give  to  the 
resolution  a  tone  and  complexion  still  stronger. 
To  these  proofs  of  the  sensation  which  has  been 
produced,  it  is  to  be  added,  that  representations  ex 
pressing  the  peculiar  sensibility  of  the  Western 
country  are  on  the  way  from  every  quarter  of  it 
to  the  government.  There  is,  in  fact,  but  one  senti 
ment  throughout  the  Union  with  respect  to  the 
duty  of  maintaining  our  rights  of  navigation  and 
boundary.  The  only  existing  difference  relates  to 
the  degree  of  patience  which  ought  to  be  exercised 
during  the  appeal  to  friendly  modes  of  redress. " 
Eight  days  later  Madison  wrote  to  Livingston: 
'  *  Mr.  Monroe  will  be  the  bearer  of  the  instructions 
under  which  you  are  jointly  to  negotiate.  The  ob- 

106 


TREATY   OF   APRIL   30,   1803        107 

ject  of  them  will  be  to  procure  a  cession  of  New 
Orleans  and  the  Floridas  to  the  United  States  and 
consequently  the  establishment  of  the  Mississippi 
as  the  boundary  between  the  United  States  and 
Louisiana. ' ' 

Livingston,  anticipating  these  instructions,  or 
rather  acting  upon  those  of  like  tenor  sent  him 
before,  addressed  the  French  Minister  of  Foreign 
Eelations  on  January  10:  "The  land  (to  be) 
ceded,  if  we  except  a  narrow  strip  on  the  bank  of 
the  river,  will,  for  the  most  part,  consist  of  barren 
sands  and  sunken  marshes,  while  that  retained  by 
France  on  the  west  side  of  the  Mississippi  includes 
the  greatest  bulk  of  the  settlements  and  a  rich  fer 
tile  country. " 

On  March  2,  Madison,  anticipating  Monroe's  ar- 
rival  in  Paris,  instructed  him:  "Your  mission  to 
Madrid  will  depend  on  the  event  of  that  to  Paris, 
and  on  the  information  there  to  be  acquired. 
Should  the  entire  cession  in  view  (the  Floridas) 
be  obtained  from  the  French  republic,  as  assignees 
of  Spain,  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  resort  to  the 
Spanish  government.  Should  the  whole  or  any 
part  of  the  cession  be  found  to  depend  not  on  the 
French,  but  on  the  Spanish  government,  you  will 
proceed  to  join  Mr.  Pinckney  in  the  requisite  ne 
gotiations  with  the  latter.  Although  the  United 
States  are  deeply  interested  in  the  complete  suc 
cess  of  your  mission,  the  Floridas,  or  even  either  of 
them,  without  the  Island  of  New  Orleans,  on  pro 
portionate  terms,  will  be  a  valuable  acquisition. ' 
Sad  to  say,  the  Secretary  of  State  here  deplorably 


108       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

weakened  to  the  limit  of  being  content  with  the 
"barren  sands  and  sunken  marshes "  of  one  of  the 
Floridas.  Livingston  writes  to  Madison  on  March 
3,  on  being  notified  of  Monroe's  appointment:  "I 
shall  do  everything  in  my  power  to  pave  the  way 
for  him,  and  sincerely  wish  his  mission  may  be  at 
tended  with  the  desired  effect,  It  will,  however, 
cut  off  one  resource  on  which  I  greatly  relied,  be 
cause  I  had  established  a  confidence  which  it  will 
take  Mr.  Monroe  some  time  to  inspire.  Enclosed 
is  a  letter  addressed  to  the  First  Consul  himself, 
and  sent  him  before  I  heard  of  Mr.  Monroe's  ap 
pointment.  ' '  The  letter  or  paper  to  which  Living 
ston  refers  was  a  cogent  and  ardent  appeal  to  Bona 
parte  for  justice;  for  the  payment  of  just  debts, 
for  the  right  to  buy  Florida  or  some  places  of 
transhipment.  He  closed  with  a  feeling  appeal  to  a 
soldier 's  humanity :  ' '  The  savages  on  the  east  side 
of  the  Mississippi  are  numerous  and  brave;  con 
siderable  sums  of  money  are  annually  expended  by 
Spain  in  purchasing  their  friendship.  Should 
their  supplies  be  withheld,  through  neglect  or  mis 
application,  a  universal  massacre  of  all  the  plant 
ers  will  ensue.  Their  detached  situation  renders  it 
impossible  to  protect  them." 

In  his  general  instructions  to  Livingston  and 
Monroe,  dated  March  2,  Secretary  Madison  lays 
down  their  essential  feature  in  article  1 :  ' '  France 
cedes  to  the  United  States  forever  the  territory  east 
of  the  Mississippi,  comprehending  the  two  Flor 
idas,  the  Island  of  New  Orleans  and  the  islands 
lying  on  the  north  and  east  of  that  channel  of  said 


TREATY   OF   APRIL   30,   1803        109 

river,  which  is  commonly  called  the  South  Pass,  to 
gether  with  such  other  islands  as  appertain  to 
either  West  or  East  Florida ;  France  reserving  her 
self  all  her  territory  on  the  west  side  of  the  Missis 
sippi/7  It  will  be  observed  here  that  while  the 
Jefferson  government  holds  on  to  New  Orleans  and 
grasps  the  i  i  sand  banks  and  sunken  marshes ' '  with 
a  firmer  hand,  it  lays  no  claim  to,  but  in  fact  en 
tirely  abandons  to  France  the  whole  of  the  west 
side  of  the  Mississippi.  This  prepares  us  to  accept 
as  veritable  the  remarkable  instructions  of  April 
18,  1803,  which  Secretary  Madison  affirms,  "the 
President  thinks  proper  should  now  be  given." 

After  directing  Livingston  and  Monroe  to  sound 
the  dispositions  of  the  British  government  and  in 
vite  its  concurrence  in  war,  the  official  dispatch 
proceeds :  ' '  Notwithstanding  the  just  repugnance 
of  this  country  to  a  coalition  of  any  sort  with  the 
belligerent  policies  of  Europe,  the  advantages  to 
be  desired  from  the  co-operation  of  Great  Britain 
in  a.  war  of  the  United  States,  at  this  period,  against 
France  and  her  allies,  are  too  obvious  and  too  im 
portant  to  be  renounced.  And  notwithstanding 
the  apparent  disinclination  of  the  British  councils 
to  a  renewal  of  hostilities  with  France,  it  will  prob 
ably  yield  to  the  various  motives  which  will  be 
felt,  to  have  the  United  States  in  the  scale  of  Brit 
ain  against  France,  and  particularly  for  the  im 
mediate  purpose  of  defeating  a  project  of  the 
latter,  which  has  evidently  created  much  solicitude 
in  the  British  government." 

On  the  same  date  a  second  letter  is  sent  to  our 


110       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

minister  in  Paris,  by  direction  of  Mr.  Jefferson, 
breathing  war  against  France:  " Among  these 
arrangements,  the  President  conceives  that  a  com 
mon  interest  may  recommend  a  candid  understand 
ing,  and  a  closer  connection  with  Great  Britain, 
and  he  presumes  that  the  occasion  may  present 
itself  to  the  British  government  in  the  same  light. 
He  accordingly  authorizes  you,  or  either  of  you,  in 
case  the  prospect  of  your  discussion  with  the 
French  government  should  make  it  expedient,  to 
open  a  confidential  communication  with  ministers 
of  the  British  government  and  to  confer  freely  and 
fully  on  the  precautions  and  provisions  best 
adapted  to  the  crisis,  and  in  which  that  government 
may  be  disposed  to  concur, ' '  and  so  forth. 

The  date,  April  18,  1803,  must  be  borne  in  mind, 
because  it  will  soon  appear  that  these  extraordinary 
instructions  were  given  after  the  Purchase  treaty 
had  been  virtually  made ! 

Still  continuing  out  of  touch  with  current  events, 
on  the  very  day  of  the  signing  of  the  Great  treaty, 
Jefferson  blindly  writes  to  John  Bacon,  from 
Washington:  "Although  I  am  not  sanguine  in 
obtaining  a  cession  of  New  Orleans  for  money,  yet 
I  am  confident  in  the  policy  of  putting  off  the  day 
of  contention  for  it,  till  we  are  stronger  in  our 
selves,  and  stronger  in  allies,  but  especially  till  we 
have  planted  such  a  population  on  the  Mississippi 
as  will  be  able  to  do  their  own  business,  without 
the  necessity  of  marching  men  from  the  shores  of 
the  Atlantic,  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand  miles 


TREATY   OF   APRIL   30,   1803        111 

thither,  to  perish  by  fatigue  and  change  of  cli 
mate.  ' ' 

Returning  now  to  what  was  happening  in  France 
and  to  Livingston's  extraordinary  exertions  and 
activities,  we  find  in  that  minister's  memorable 
midnight  dispatch,  dated  Paris,  April  13, 1803,  and 
finished  at  3  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  authentic 
official  history  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  treaty. 
This  long,  clear  and  comprehensive  statement  tells 
the  whole  historic  story.  The  Great  treaty  was,  in 
its  essential  elements,  the  work  of  three  days.  On 
April  11,  Talleyrand  asked  Livingston  "whether 
he  washed  to  have  the  whole  of  Louisiana?"  On 
April  12  Monroe  arrived;  Livingston  again  saw 
Talleyrand,  who  tried  to  bluff  him.  On  April  13 
two  conferences  took  place  between  Marbois  and 
Livingston,  lasting  several  hours  and  ending  at 
midnight,  in  which  both  negotiators  agreed  upon 
a  treaty  of  transfer  and  acquisition,  leaving  open 
the  amount  to  be  paid.  Upon  this  point  they  did 
not  differ  widely.  Monroe  was  not  presented  to 
the  First  Consul  until  May  1,  and  hence,  as  a  ne 
gotiator,  had  nothing  officially  to  do  with  a  treaty 
virtually  negotiated  April  13  and  finally  concluded 
April  30. 

The  Livingston  dispatches  of  April  13  and  April 
27  cover  the  essential  steps  in  the  progress  of  the 
famous  negotiation.  To  quote  all  that  is  interest 
ing  is  impossible.  To  condense  is  our  only  re 
course.  From  these  letters  we  learn  that  the  de 
cision  to  sell  Louisiana  was  reached  on  Sunday, 
April  10,  after  Napoleon  had  had  a  prolonged  con- 


112       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

ference  with  Talleyrand,  Marbois  and  others.  The 
idea  of  selling  originated  in  the  active  brain  of 
Bonaparte.  It  was  opposed  by  his  brothers  and  by 
Talleyrand,  Berthier  and  other  chief  men.  The 
subject  was  broached  by  Talleyrand  on  Monday, 
introduced  again  by  our  minister  on  Tuesday,  who 
found  Talleyrand  evasive  and  mendacious,  and 
was  twice  returned  to  by  Marbois  on  Wednesday. 
On  this  day,  April  13,  the  serious  business  began. 
Marbois  sought  Livingston  while  the  latter  was  at 
dinner ;  returned  after  dinner ;  gave  an  opening  for 
a  free  talk,  which  our  minister  improved  by  be 
ginning  with  the  debts  due  and  commenting  on  the 
extraordinary  conversation  and  conduct  of  Talley 
rand,  the  foreign  minister.  Marbois  said  that  this 
led  to  '  *  something  important  that  had  been  cursor 
ily  mentioned  to  him  at  St.  Cloud,  but,  as  my  house 
was  full  of  company,  he  thought  I  had  better  call 
upon  him  any  time  before  11  that  night."  Liv 
ingston  was  now  too  much  alive  to  the  prodigious 
import  of  the  matter  in  hand  to  wait  until  11  at 
night.  So,  soon  as  Monroe  took  leave  he  hastened 
to  the  house  of  Marbois.  After  discussing  the 
equivocations  of  Talleyrand  and  the  Consul's  blunt 
proposal  for  us  to  hand  over  a  hundred  million 
francs,  pay  our  own  claims  and  take  the  whole 
country,  Livingston,  after  a  polite  and  politic  dis 
avowal  of  any  anxiety  to  seek  a  larger  expansion 
of  territory,  cautiously  remarked,  "We  would  be 
ready  to  purchase,  provided  the  sum  was  reduced 
to  reasonable  limits."  Marbois  said  if  we  would 
name  sixty  millions  and  take  upon  us  the  Amer- 


TREATY   OF   APRIL   30,   1803        113 

lean  claims,  to  the  amount  of  twenty  more,  he 
would  try  how  far  this  would  be  accepted.  Our 
minister  declared  that  sum  was  greatly  beyond  our 
means  and  wished  Bonaparte  reminded  that  the 
whole  region  was  liable  to  become  the  property  of 
England.  The  Minister  of  the  Public  Treasury 
admitted  the  weight  of  all  this.  But,  said  he, ' '  You 
know  the  temper  of  a  youthful  conqueror,  every 
thing  he  does  is  rapid  as  lightning,  we  have  only  to 
speak  to  him  as  an  opportunity  presents  itself,  per 
haps  in  a  crowd,  when  he  bears  no  contradiction. 
*  Try  then  if  you  cannot  come  up  to  my 
mark.  Consider  the  extent  of  the  country,  the  ex 
clusive  navigation  of  the  river,  and  the  importance 
of  having  no  neighbors  to  disrupt  you,  no  war  to 
dread."  Our  minister  asked  him  in  case  of  a  pur 
chase  whether  they  would  stipulate  that  France 
would  never  possess  the  Floridas  and  that  she 
would  aid  us  to  procure  them.  He  replied  in  the 
affirmative.  ' l  The  field  opened  to  us  is  infinitely 
larger  than  our  instructions  contemplated, ' '  says 
Livingston,  but  he  promises  to  consult  Monroe.  In  \ 
the  dispatch  of  April  17,  he  repeats  l '  that  the  com 
mission  contains  power  only  to  treat  for  lands  on 
the  east  side  of  the  Mississippi."  "You  will  rec 
ollect,"  writes  Livingston  to  Madison,  "that  I  have 
been  absolutely  without  powers  to  the  present  mo 
ment,  and  that  though  I  have  hazarded  many 
things  upon  a  presumption  that  I  should  have 
them,  none  have  been  received  till  now  and  now 
they  are  unfortunately  too  limited." 

On  the  15th  of  April,  after  conferring  with  Mon- 


114       THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

roe,  Livingston  offered  Marbois  fifty  million 
francs,  plus  the  debts,  for  the  whole  of  Louisiana. 
This  approached  within  two  million  dollars  of  the 
price  asked.  Bonaparte  received  this  offer  "cold 
ly,"  from  policy,  of  course.  Monroe's  reception 
was  delayed,  about  which  Livingston  writes: 
"Mr.  Monroe  having  been  compelled,  where  here 
(1794)  to  be  well  with  the  party  then  uppermost, 
and  who  are  now  detested  by  the  present  ruler,  it 
will  be  some  time  before  they  know  how  to  esti 
mate  his  worth,  and  Talleyrand  has,  I  find,  im 
bibed  personal  prejudice  against  him,  that  will  in 
duce  him  to  throw  every  possible  obstruction  in 
his  way  that  he  can  consistently  with  their  own 
views."  Napoleon  went  off  to  Flanders  and  left 
negotiations  at  a  standstill  until  our  ministers 
wisely  agreed  to  Bonaparte's  own  favorable  terms. 
The  first  announcement  of  the  grand  consummation 
was  sent  to  Eufus  King,  in  London,  in  these  words : 
"We  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that  a  treaty 
(the  30th  April),  has  been  signed  between  the  Min 
ister  Plenipotentiary  of  the  French  government, 
and  ourselves,  by  which  the  United  States  have  ob 
tained  the  full  right  to  and  sovereignty  in  and 
over  New  Orleans,  and  the  whole  of  Louisiana,  as 
Spain  possessed  the  same." 

On  the  12th  of  May,  Livingston  forwards  to 
Washington  by  "a  special  and  safe  messenger" 
Mr.  Hughes— the  Great  treaty,  accompanied  by 
other  papers  and  two  lengthy  dispatches,  the  sec 
ond  of  which  is  signed,  like  the  treaty,  by  both 
American  ministers.  We  can  extract  but  spar- 


TREATY   OF   APRIL   30,   1803       115 

ingly  and  only  from  what  is  of  general  interest. 
Livingston  writes  to  Madison:  " Among  the  most 
favorite  projects  of  the  First  Consul,  was  the  col 
onization  of  Louisiana.  He  saw  in  it  a  new  Egypt ; 
he  saw  in  it  a  colony  that  was  to  counterbalance  the 
eastern  establishment  of  Britain;  he  saw  in  it  a 
provision  for  his  generals,  and  what  was  more  im 
portant  on  the  then  state  of  things,  he  saw  in  it  a 
pretense  for  the  ostracism  of  suspected  enemies. 
To  render  the  acquisition  still  more  agreeable  to 
the  people,  exaggerated  accounts  of  its  fertility, 
etc.,  were  sold  in  every  print  shop." 

The  herculean  labors  and  ceaseless  toils  of  Liv 
ingston  to  force  and  keep  the  dark  and  ominous 
side  of  the  Louisiana  picture  before  the  unsuspect 
ing  eyes  of  Bonaparte,  can  never  in  their  all-em 
bracing  comprehensiveness  be  set  forth.  He  per 
sonally  saw  and  deluged  with  written  arguments, 
which  he  called  memoirs,  every  person  with  any 
influence  from  Napoleon  down;  his  vigilance  was 
almost  literally  sleepless  until  the  acute  stage  and 
critical  crisis  were  unalterably  passed;  and  as  a 
proof  of  his  far-seeing  statesmanship,  he  even  then 
clearly  saw  that  "next  to  the  negotiation  that  se 
cured  our  independence,  this  is  the  most  important 
the  United  States  has  ever  entered  into."  In  the 
great  peace  treaty  of  1782-83,  he  was  second  only 
to  Franklin  in  the  value  and  extent  of  his  services. 
When  this  illustrious  man  next  appears  on  the 
broad  world  scene,  he  frames  a  treaty  that  doubles 
the  area  of  his  Country,  without  one  line  of  relevant 
instructions  from  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  The 


116       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

President  and  Secretary  of  State  never  for  a  mo 
ment  extended  their  vision  beyond  the  Mississippi 
to  its  boundless  west  side.  Not  a  dollar  of  the 
two  millions  they  asked  from  Congress  was  to  be 
expended  on  the  side  of  the  great  Northwest  which 
grew  to  be  the  best  end  of  the  Kepublic.  The  ad 
ministration  knew  not  what  was  going  on  in  Eu 
rope.  Livingston  divined  everything  that  was  go 
ing  on  and  made  things  move  on  in  his  own  chosen 
way.  The  soldier  whose  fame  subsequently  filled 
the  world,  was  now  but  thirty- four;  was  without 
experience  in  statesmanship  or  diplomacy  and 
handicapped  by  events,  could  hardly  be  expected 
to  cope  with  a  veteran  in  both  these  fields,  now  in 
the  ripe  maturity  of  his  powers,  with  the  honors 
and  laurels  of  former  triumphs  giving  power  to  his 
brain  and  dignity  to  his  brow.  In  the  battle  of  the 
Mississippi  the  conqueror  of  Italy  met  with  his 
first  defeat. 


CHAPTEK  X. 

ECHOES  OF  THE  GREAT  TREATY. 

BONAPARTE'S  MOTIVES  FOR  SELLING  LOUISIANA — HIS 
PROPHECIES  —  HOW   ACQUISITION   WAS  RECEIVED. 

THE  three  most  significant  dates  historically 
connected  with  the  acquisition  of  the  mag 
nificent  domain  known  as  Louisiana,  are 
April  30,  1803,  when  the  Great  treaty  was 
signed ;  October  19,  when  the  treaty  was  ratified  in 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States  by  a  vote  of  twen 
ty-four  to  seven,  and  December  20,  1803,  when  our 
government  received  formal  ppssession  at  New 
Orleans,  from  the  French  prefect,  Laussat.  Were 
we  to  add  an  interesting  fourth  date,  it  would  be 
April  10  of  the  same  treaty  year— that  blessed 
Easter  day— when  Napoleon,  having  returned  from 
his  Easter  devotions,  to  the  still  standing  Palace 
of  St.  Cloud,  announced  his  sudden  resolution  to 
sell  the  whole  of  his  possessions  in  America  to  the 
Americans. 

Much  has  been  written  about  the  motives  of  Bon 
aparte  in  parting  with  his  newly-acquired  and  still 
unexplored  territory  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
It  can  only  be  asserted  with  reasonable  safety  that 
he  doubtless  acted  from  mixed  motives,  which  were 
as  various  as  his  moods.  When  not  inscrutable,  the 
mainspring  of  his  actions  seemed  to  be  military 

117 


118       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

glory  and  personal  aggrandizement.  He  was  prob 
ably  impelled  to  adopt  what  proved  to  be  a  fool 
ishly  unwise  policy,  for  these  reasons: 

1.  He  feared  that  in  the  event  of  war,  which  was 
imminent,  he  would  lose  the  colony  of  Louisiana 
within  sixty  days  after  he  took  possession.     The 
Treaty  of  Amiens  was  at  an  end;  Austria  was 
threatening ;  a  British  fleet  was  in  the  West  Indies 
and  a  sensational  report  had  come  from  London 
that  fifty  thousand  men  were  being  raised  for 
service  in  Louisiana. 

2.  His  affairs  on  the  Island  of  San  Domingo 
were  in  1803  the  worst  possible ;  Toussaint  1'Ouver- 
ture  had  worsted  three  of  his  best  marshals;  Le 
Clerc  had  just  died,  to  whom  he  was  attached,  next 
to  Duroc,  Lannes  and  Berthier;  and  Livingston 
was  shrewd  enough    to  hold    this  bloody  specter 
ever  before  his  eyes ;  another  San  Domingo  on  his 
hands  he  did  not  want. 

3.  The  First  Consul,  impressed    by  our  min 
ister's  social  rank  in  his  own  country,  no  less  than 
by  his  merciless  logic  and  solid  understanding,  had 
given  his  promise  that  debts  due  for  the  spoliation 
of  our  commerce,  should  be  paid.     This  promise, 
of  which  he  was  again  and  again  reminded,  could 
only  be  kept  by  realizing  on  sale  of  public  lands. 
He  had  then  no  funds. 

4.  About  this  time  the  hero  of  Italy  caught  a 
vague  glimpse  of  larger  game.    He  projected  the 
wild  scheme  of  carrying  the  war,  not  into  Africa, 
like  Scipio  Africanus,  but  into  Briton,  like  Caesar. 
The  scheme  did  not  mature,  partly   because   the 


THE    GREAT    TREATY  119 

young  chieftain  was  not  the  peer  of  the  "mighty 
Julius,"  whom  Shakespeare  calls  "the  foremost 
man  of  all  this  world."  And  then,  the  heroes  of 
the  Nile  and  the  future  victors  of  Trafalgar  were 
lying  in  wait  in  the  channel,  and  had  the  French 
levies  ever  gotten  into  England,  the  retreat  from 
London  would  possibly  have  paralleled  the  retreat 
from  Moscow,  the  most  disastrous  in  all  history. 

5.  Livingston's  powers  as  a  logician  and  sub 
lime  persistence  were  influencing  factors  in  this 
momentous  contention.  Talleyrand  said  "he  was 
the  most  importunate  negotiator  he  had  yet  met 
with." 

C  And  lastly  the  French  Consul  cherished  a  desire 
to  build  this  Nation  up  at  the  expense  of  Great 
Britain.  He  had  rather  the  American  Union 
would  grow  strong  and  great  than  should  his  most 
dangerous  rival. 

A  few  genuine  Napoleonic  utterances  must  suf 
fice  to  support  the  preceding  propositions.  The 
most  remarkable  of  these  is  found  on  page  65  of 
Histoire  Generale  des  Traites  de  Paix  by  Le  Comte 
de  Garden:  /'Objection  may  be  made  that  the 
Americans  will  prove  to  be  too  powerful  for 
Europe  in  two  or  three  centuries ;  but  my  plans  do 
not  take  into  account  these  remote  contingencies. 
They  (the  Americans)  will  have  to  give  attention 
in  the  future  to  conflicts  among  the  States  of 
the  Union.  Confederations  which  call  themselves 
perpetual  last  only  so  long  as  the  contracting  par 
ties  find  it  to  their  interest  not  to  break  them  and 
it  is  to  other  present  dangers  to  which  we  are  ex- 


120       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

posed  from  the  colossal  power  of  England  that  I 
propose  to  apply  a  remedy. "  This  is  both  an  then- 
tie  and  prophetic. 

A  translation  from  a  passage  on  the  same  page 
shows  that  we  paid  for  the  Louisiana  region  some 
thing  more  than  Bonaparte  would  have  taken: 
1  i  If  I  should  regulate  my  terms  by  what  these  vast 
territories  are  worth  to  the  United  States,  the  in 
demnity  would  have  no  limit.  I  will  be  moderate 
for  the  reason  that  I  am  obliged  to  sell.  But,  keep 
this  to  yourself  (to  Marbois)  I  want  fifty  millions, 
and  for  less  than  that  I  will  not  treat;  I  would 
rather  make  a  desperate  effort  to  hold  those  fine 
regions.''  On  page  75  of  same  authoritative  source, 
we  find  this  characteristic  utterance  by  Napoleon: 
"When  told  by  Barbe-Marbois  that  there  was  some 
uncertainty  and  obscurity  in  one  article  of  the 
treaty,  he  replied  that  l  i  if  obscurity  was  not  there, 
it  would  perhaps  be  good  policy  to  put  it  there." 
These  and  numerous  other  quotations  have  been 
transferred  bodily,  without  credit,  to  what  is  known 
as  Marbois 's  History  of  Louisiana,  which  was 
probably  written  by  William  Beach  Lawrence  in 
the  apparent  interest  of  James  Monroe  and  other 
political  friends.  The  kindly  Marbois  at  the  feeble 
age  of  eighty-three,  doubtless  lent  the  use  of  his 
name  to  the  inaccurate  book  which  first  appeared 
in  Paris  in  1828.  The  History  of  Peace  Treaties, 
of  which  Garden's  great  work  is  a  continuation, 
was  first  published  prior  to  this  date. 

Eeturning  to  the  highest  sources  of  historical  in 
formation  on  this  side  of  the  ocean— the  archives 


THE    GREAT   TREATY  121 

of  the  Government  and  the  American  state  papers 
—it  may  be  affirmed  that  the  writers  of  Louisiana 
treaty  history  have  apparently  shunned  these  first 
sources  of  historic  facts  as  if  they  were  poisoned 
springs. 

As  proof  of  the  strange  fatuity  of  the  chief  of 
ficers  of  the  administration,  the  Secretary  of  State 
writes  from  Washington  to  James  Monroe,  on 
April  20,  1803 :  < l  Certain  it  is  that  the  hearts  and 
hopes  of  the  Western  people  are  strongly  fixed 
on  the  Mississippi  for  the  future  boundary.  ; 
It  is  even  a  doubt  with  some  of  the  best  judges 
whether  the  deposit  alone  should  not  be  waived  for 
a  while,  rather  than  it  should  be  the  immediate 
ground  for  war  and  an  alliance  with  England. " 

This  letter  was  written  just  ten  days  before  the 
Great  treaty  was  actually  dated,  and  one  week 
after  it  was  virtually  agreed  upon.  Wfaat  had  al 
ready  become  the  central,  transcontinental  canal, 
or  broad,  free  highway  from  mountain  to  sea,  of 
the  greater  Republic,  Madison  would  make  its 
fixed,  future  boundary! 

On  May  1  he  addressed  Monroe :  * l  We  have  just 
received  the  message  of  his  Britannic  majesty, 
which  is  represented  as  the  signal  of  a  certain 
rupture  with  France. ' '  He  adds :  l '  Such  an  event 
seems  scarce  avoidable. "  A  rupture  with  France, 
whose  ruler  has  just  given  us  for  a  song  an  empire 
larger  than  his  own!  Was  there  ever  such  blind 
man's  buff  diplomacy? 

In  a  dispatch  of  May  28,  one  month  less  two 
days  after  the  Purchase  treaty  was  signed  and  in 


122       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

effect  ratified  in  Paris,  Madison  involves  Jefferson 
in  his  own  diplomacy-in-the-dark.  He  instructs 
Livingston  and  Monroe:  "The  President  thinks 
that  it  will  be  ineligible,  under  such  circumstances, 
that  any  convention  whatever  on  the  subject  should 
be  entered  into,  that  will  not  secure  to  the  United 
States  the  jurisdiction  of  a  reasonable  district  on 
some  convenient  part  of  the  bank  of  the  Missis 
sippi."  It  is  needless  to  say  that  "a  reasonable 
district"  related  to  the  lower  Mississippi  where 
we  required  a  place  of  transshipment,  not  to  those 
vast  regions  already  acquired  lying  along  the  great 
western  tributaries  of  the  upper  Mississippi. 

And  thus  the  habitual  vacillations  of  Jefferson 
and  Madison  led  them  to  abandon  every  claim  ex 
cept,  one  landing  place !  If  this  is  statesmanship, 
what  would  be  its  absence  ? 

Three  copies  of  the  Louisiana  treaty  were  trans 
mitted  to  the  United  States  by  three  separate 
agencies,  but  Mr.  Hughes  arrived  first,  on  July  14, 
and  delivered  the  weighty  document  to  the  Presi 
dent  at  Washington.  That  Jefferson  and  Madison 
were  astonished  is  to  put  it  with  mildness. 

They  were,  in  point  of  fact,  dazed  at  the  audacity 
of  their  agents,  the  immensity  of  the  sum  paid  and 
the  enormous  magnitude  of  the  whole  transaction. 
After  taking  two  weeks  to  recover  their  equilib 
rium,  the  Secretary  of  State,  instead  of  overwhelm 
ing  one  of  America's  greatest  benefactors  with 
grateful  thanks,  finds  fault  with  Livingston  in  a 
personal  letter  addressed  to  Monroe.  The  Presi 
dent  at  first  declares  that  he  cannot  approve  of  the 


THE    GREAT    TREATY  123 

treaty,  because,  if  be  does,  he  will  make  waste  pa 
per  of  the  constitution. 

He  keeps  repeating  "  waste  paper  of  the  con 
stitution,"  but  finding  at  length  that  everybody 
was  in  favor  of  the  treaty,  except  a  few  Hartford 
convention  Federalists  who  had  passed  his  own 
Kentucky  resolutions  of  '98*  in  diluted  form  and 
had  ceased  to  be  Nationalists,  he  reverses  the  teach 
ings  of  a  lifetime  and  reluctantly  approves  of  the 
actions  of  his  agents.  Mr.  Jefferson  had  long 
been  teaching  that  the  strict  construction  of  the 
constitution  permitted  nothing  to  be  done  under  it 
except  what  was  expressly  authorized.  There  was 
hence  no  authority  in  express  terms  for  the  Nation 
to  grow  in  size,  to  enlarge  its  boundaries,  to  add 
new  territories.  Ohio  had  been  admitted  into  the 
Union  that  very  year  with  his  approval,  but  this 
was  carved  out  of  an  acquisition  gained  by  another 
peaceful  or  peace  treaty— with  England— made  be 
fore  the  constitution  became  operative.  The  su 
preme  organic  law,  according  to  this  literal  ex 
pounder,  hindered  growth,  development,  progress, 

*  President  Roosevelt,  in  his  inspiring  Life  of  Thomas  H. 
Benton,  page  85,  last  ed.,  gives  his  countrymen  some  bed-rock 
history  when  he  says: 

"Jefferson  was  the  father  of  nullification,  and  therefore  of 
secession.  He  used  the  word  'nullify'  in  the  original  draft 
which  he  supplied  to  the  Kentucky  legislature,  and  though 
that  body  struck  it  out  of  the  resolutions  which  they  passed 
in  1798,  they  inserted  it  in  those  of  the  following  year.  This 
was  done  mainly  as  an  unscrupulous  party  move  on  Jefferson's 
part,  and  when  his  side  came  into  power  he  became  a  firm 
upholder  of  the  Union;  and,  being  constitutionally  unable  to 
put  a  proper  value  on  truthfulness,  he  even  denied  that  his 
resolutions  could  be  construed  to  favor  nullification — though 
they  could  by  no  possibility  be  construed  to  mean  anything 
else." 


124       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

expansion./  Instead  of  frankly  admitting  that  his 
constructional  theories  were  fundamentally  wrong, 
he  proceeded  to  take  the  right  action  and  then 
tried  to  get  the  constitution  amended  so  as  to 
authorize  in  terms  the  acquisition  of  this  territory. 
But  the  President's  nearest  friends  took  so  languid 
an  interest  in  the  amendment  scheme  that  the 
whole  matter  of  post  facto  sanction  was  at  once 
and  forever  abandoned.  / 

However,  as  late  as  August  12,  1803,  in  a  letter 
to  John  Breckinridge,  the  President  continues  to 
insist  that  "The  constitution  has  made  no  pro 
vision  for  our  incorporating  foreign  nations  into 
our  Union. ' '  But  two  urgent  letters  from  the  ever- 
watchful  and  indefatigable  Livingston,  brings 
about  an  almost  instantaneous  change  of  base.  The 
minister  writes  that  the  First  Consul  is  already 
tired  of  his  bargain,  being  free  from  war's  alarms, 
and  has  instructed  Marbois  to  take  advantage  of 
any  loopholes  or  technicalities  in  the  line  of  rati 
fication  or  prompt  payment,  to  get  rid  of  an  un 
fortunate  agreement.  The  great  negotiator,  almost 
trembling  with  apprehension,  beseeches  Jefferson 
by  his  love  of  Country  and  by  all  that  is  holy,  to 
hasten  ratification  without  the  change  of  a  word  or 
a  stipulation ;  to  literally  and  immediately  comply 
with  the  financial  conditions  of  the  great  trans 
action,  so  that  Bonaparte  shall  have  no  possible 
excuse  for  evading  his  solemn  pledges  and  obliga 
tions.  The  timely  appeal  had  its  desired  effect. 
The  President  wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  State  from 
Monticello,  August  12:  "I  infer  that  the  less  we 


THE    GREAT   TREATY  125 

say  about  constitutional  difficulties  respecting 
Louisiana  the  better,  and  that  what  is  necessary 
.for  surmounting  them  must  be  done  sub-silentio. ' ' 
A  special  session  of  Congress  was  called  to 
meet  October  17,  and  at  the  end  of  two  days,  to 
the  enduring  credit  of  the  United  States  Senate  of 
the  Eighth  Congress,  the  magnificent  acquisition 
was  consummated  and  ratified.  It  is  useless  to  re 
hearse  the  exploded  theories  and  sophistical  rea 
soning  used  in  the  Senate  and  still  more  in  the 
House  against  this  beneficent  treaty.  Hamilton, 
of  course,  and  other  patriots  of  his  party  sup 
ported  the  treaty  most  zealously.  Perhaps  nothing 
weaker  was  said  from  the  beginning  to  the  ending 
of  this  enormous  transaction  than  what  Monroe 
said  in  a  letter  to  Madison,  written  two  weeks  after 
the  treaty  was  signed :  * '  Could  we  have  procured 
a  part  of  the  territory  we  should  never  have 
thought  of  getting  the  whole,  but  the  decision  of  the 
Consul  was  to  sell  the  whole,  and  we  could  not 
obtain  any  change  in  his  mind  on  the  subject/' 
Compared  with  such  dullness,  Jefferson's  twin- 
nation  theory  might  almost  pass  for  wisdom: 
' l  Whether  we  remain  one  confederacy,  or  form  into 
Atlantic  or  Mississippi  confederacies,  I  believe  is 
not  very  important  to  the  happiness  of  either 
part."  .A  final  chapter  contrasting  conditions  in 
the  Louisiana  Purchase  States  in  1803  and  1900, 
will  afford,  we  trust,  a  pleasing  conclusion  to  this 
historic  story. 


CHAPTEK   XL 
LOUISIANA    PURCHASE    STATES. 

CONDITIONS  IN   1803  AND  1900  CONTRASTED. 

THE  State  of  Louisiana,  the  first-born  State 
of  the  Louisiana  treaty,  was  admitted  into 
the  Union  April  30, 1812.  It  was  named  by 
LaSalle  after  Louis  XIV,  King  of  France. 
It  contains  an  area  of  forty-eight  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  twenty  square  miles,  being  some 
what  larger  than  the  Territory  of  Orleans,  which 
was  organized  March  26,  1804.  Louisiana,  by  the 
census  of  1900,  has  a  population  of  one  million 
three  hundred  and  eighty-one  thousand  six  hundred 
and  twenty-five.  In  1803  the  population  was  placed 
at  fifty  thousand;  in  1800,  at  forty-two  thousand 
three  hundred  and  seventy-five.  The  City  of  New 
Orleans,  with  a  population  of  two  hundred  and 
eighty-seven  thousand  one  hundred  and  four  in 
1900,  had  but  eight  thousand  and  fifty-six  in  1803. 
The  population  of  the  State  increased  twenty-three 
and  five-tenths  per  cent  from  1890  to  1900,  and 
thirty-six  and  seven-tenths  per  cent  from  1850  to 
1860.  The  cotton  product  of  1900  was  seven  hun 
dred  and  fourteen  thousand  and  seventy-three  com 
mercial  bales.  In  1802  the  revenues  of  the  colony 
from  all  sources  amounted  to  one  hundred  and 
twenty-one  thousand  and  forty-one  dollars.  The 

126 


LOUISIANA    PURCHASE   STATES   127 


expenses  of  the  Spanish  government,  troops,  In 
dian  presents,  etc.,  reached  four  hundred  thousand 
dollars  in  specie,  at  that  time.  The  French  had 
provided,  before  occupation,  a  captain  general,  with 
a  salary  of  seventy  thousand  francs;  a  colonial 
prefect,  at  fifty  thousand  francs  ;  three  brigadier 
generals,  etc.  The  French  prefect,  Laussat,  wrote 
home:  "I  will  now  proceed  to  say  how  justice  is 
administered  here,  which  is  worse  than  in  Turkey.  '  ' 
United  States  Consul  Clark  wrote  to  his  govern 
ment  in  1803:  "All  the  officers  plunder  when 
the  opportunity  offers;  they  are  all  venal."  In 
view  of  these  facts,  Robert  R.  Livingston's  words, 
after  signing  the  Great  treaty,  seem  more  and 
more  remarkable  :  '  '  We  have  lived  long,  but  this 
is  the  noblest  work  of  our  whole  lives.  *  *  * 
The  instruments  which  we  have  just  signed  will 
cause  no  tears  to  be  shed;  they  prepare  ages  of 
happiness  for  innumerable  generations  of  human 
creatures.  The  Mississippi  and  Missouri  will  see 
them  succeed  one  another,  and  multiply,  truly 
worthy  of  the  regard  and  care  of  Providence,  in 
the  bosom  of  equality,  under  just  laws,  freed  from 
the  errors  of  superstition  and  the  scourges  of  bad 
government.  '  '  On  November  30  the  Spanish  com 
missioners,  Casa  Calvo  and  Salcedo,  surrendered 
the  whole  of  ancient  Louisiana  to  the  French  com 
missioner,  Laussat.  The  region  was  in  the  nom 
inal  possession  of  France  just  twenty  days.  On 
December  20,  1803,  it  was  surrendered  by  Laussat 
to  Governor  Claiborne  and  General  Wilkinson,  the 
American  commissioners.  That  was  the  glorious 


128       THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

date  when  the  French  flag  came  down  and  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  went  up,  amid  salvos  of  artillery  from 
shore  batteries  and  warships.  The  subsequent  ter 
ritorial  experience  was  not  so  glorious.  Claibome, 
who  became  the  first  governor,  knew  neither  the 
laws  nor  the  language  of  the  people  he  was  sent  to 
govern.  His  despotism  was  complete,  because,  be 
ing  the  chief  of  state  and  court  of  last  resort,  he 
centered  in  his  own  person  all  executive  and  ju 
dicial  functions.  Under  the  Act  of  Congress  of 
March  26,  1804,  one  judge  constituted  a  quorum, 
so  that  one  man  could  still  rob  the  citizen  of  prop 
erty,  honor  or  life,  at  will.  Certain  Spanish  land 
titles  were  declared  void.  Laussat  described  Clai- 
borne  as  ' '  extremely  beneath  the  position  in  which 
he  has  been  placed, "  and  Wilkinson  as  "a  rattle 
headed  fellow,  frequently  drunk;"  neither,  know 
ing  ' '  a  word  of  French  nor  Spanish. ' '  From  these 
men  to  Edward  Livingston,  President  Zachary 
Taylor  and  Judah  P.  Benjamin  are  long  steps  up 
ward. 

MISSOURI. 

The  upper  portion  of  old  Louisiana  was  named 
the  ' l  District  of  Louisiana ' '  under  the  Act  of  1804, 
but  by  the  act  which  took  effect  July  4,  1805,  was 
called  the  "  Territory  of  Louisiana. "  This  name 
was  changed  to  Missouri  when  organized  in  1812. 
On  August  10, 1821,  it  was  admitted  into  the  Union 
as  a  State,  with  an  area  of  sixty-nine  thousand  four 
hundred  and  fifteen  square  miles.  The  territory 
had  a  population  of  twenty  thousand  eight  hundred 


LOUISIANA   PURCHASE   STATES   129 

and  forty-five  in  1810 ;  sixty-six  thousand  five  hun 
dred  and  eighty-six  inhabitants  in  1820,  and  the 
State  one  million  one  hundred  and  eighty-two 
thousand  and  twelve  in  1860,  which  grew  to  three 
million  one  hundred  and  six  thousand  six  hundred 
and  sixty-five  in  1900.  Of  this  population  fifty-one 
and  four-tenths  per  cent  are  males.  The  population 
of  St.  Louis,  the  fourth  city  in  the  Union,  was  fixed 
by  the  last  federal  census  at  five  hundred  and  sev 
enty-five  thousand  two  hundred  and  thirty-eight. 
By  the  same  census  Kansas  City  has  one  hundred 
and  sixty-three  thousand  seven  hundred  and  fifty- 
two  inhabitants ;  St.  Joseph,  one  hundred  and  two 
thousand  nine  hundred  and  seventy-nine.  In 
March,  1804,  the  double  transfer  of  this  district 
was  made  by  Captain  Amos  Stoddard,  who,  as  the 
agent  of  France,  received  it  from  the  Spanish  com 
mandant,  Delassus,  and  almost  immediately  turned 
it  over  to  the  United  States.  Changing  flags  was 
not  a  joyful  occasion.  The  authority  of  Governor 
William  Henry  Harrison  of  the  Indiana  Territory 
was  extended  over  the  newly  acquired  region,  which 
then  included  what  is  now  known  as  Missouri,  Ar 
kansas,  Iowa,  Kansas  and  eight  other  Northwestern 
States.  Harrison  conducted  affairs  with  wisdom, 
integrity  and  ability.  Under  the  Act  of  March  3, 
1805,  General  Wilkinson  became  governor  of  the 
"Territory  of  Louisiana. "  Wilkinson  deserves 
some  credit  for  aiding  Lewis  and  Clark  and  Lieu 
tenant  Pike,  who  all  had  so  much  to  do  in  making 
the  extent  and  value  of  the  great  purchase  known 
throughout  the  Union. 


130       TEE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

In  1808,  Meriwether  Lewis  became  governor. 
Deep  distress  over  the  ruin  to  trade,  caused  by  fool 
ish  Chinese  wall  embargoes,  led  in  some  measure 
to  the  suicide  of  this  supersensitive  but  high  type 
historic  man.  Captain  William  Clark,  the  com 
panion  of  Captain  Lewis,  in  the  famous  Missouri 
and  Columbia  River  exploring  expedition,  and 
brother  of  the  brilliant  George  Rogers  Clark,  be 
came  territorial  governor  in  1812.  Until  Missouri 
entered  the  Union  as  a  State  this  meritorious  officer 
contributed  greatly  to  the  rapid  advancement  of  the 
whole  region.  With  these  auspicious  beginnings 
it  is  not  surprising  that  such  broad,  national  men 
as  Thomas  H.  Benton,  Francis  P.  Blair,  Edward 
Bates,  and  their  equals,  grew  to  opulence  in  re 
nown.  Mr.  Bates  was  Abraham  Lincoln 's  first  de 
clared  choice  for  the  Presidency  in  1860  and  that 
great  man's  first  selection  for  his  cabinet.  The 
State  takes  its  name  from  the  river,  the  latter 
from  two  Indian  words,  Mis  and  Souri,  meaning 
"big  muddy. " 

AKKANSAS. 

This  State  came  into  the  Union  in  1836.  Its  area 
is  fifty-three  thousand  eight  hundred  and  fifty 
square  miles.  Its  population  in  1900  was  one  mil 
lion  three  hundred  and  eleven  thousand  five  hun 
dred  and  sixty-four.  It  produced  in  that  year 
eight  hundred  and  twenty-eight  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  twenty  bales  of  cotton.  The  assessed 
value  of  real  estate  is  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
eight  million  eighty- four  thousand  six  hundred  and 


LOUISIANA    PURCHASE   STATES  131 

sixty-seven  dollars.  The  capital  invested  in  manu 
facturing  and  mechanical  industries  in  1900  was 
thirty-five  million  nine  hundred  and  sixty  thou 
sand  six  hundred  and  forty  dollars.  The  increase 
in  this  capital  from  1880  to  1890  was  forty  and 
seven-tenths  per  cent.  Not  only  the  gold  hunter, 
De  Soto,  but  the  indomitable  La  Salle,  the  chival 
rous  De  Tonty  and  the  truthful  historian,  Joutel, 
traveled  all  over  this  Arkansas  wilderness.  Three- 
fourths  of  the  State  is  still  a  forest.  On  March  3, 
1805,  Upper  Louisiana  was  divided  into  the  Dis 
trict  of  New  Madrid  and  Territory  of  Louisiana. 
The  southern  part  of  Missouri  and  what  is  now 
Arkansas  constituted  this  "district."  General 
James  Wilkinson,  appointed  by  the  Prsident  as 
governor,  and  Meigs  and  Lucas,  the  two  superior 
court  judges,  constituted  the  Legislature.  In  1806 
the  district  was  called  Arkansas  and  Stephen  Wor- 
rel  became  the  first  deputy  governor.  From  and 
after  1813  the  Legislature  of  Missouri  continued 
creating  new  counties;  but  on  July  4,  1819,  Ar 
kansas  began  a  separate  territorial  existence.  Pres 
ident  Monroe  appointed  General  James  Miller,  the 
hero  of  Lundy's  Lane,  the  first  governor.  This 
brave  soldier  filled  the  chief  office  with  honesty  and 
honor  until  his  resignation  in  1825.  James  S.  Con- 
way  was  the  first  State  governor,  elected  by  the 
people  in  1836.  Honesty  and  efficiency  marked  his 
administration.  With  Governor  Conway  may  be 
classed  public  men  of  wider  distinction,  such  as 
Augustus  H.  Garland.  The  names  of  river  and 
State  come  from  the  French  prefix  arc  and  the  In- 


132       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

dian  Kansas  meaning  river  of  the  "bow"  Indians, 
of  ' '  smoky  water. ' ' 

IOWA. 

The  lead  mines  of  Dubuque  attracted  the  first 
settlers  to  Iowa,  The  name  Iowa,  derived  from 
the  Indian  Yawa,  "across  beyond,"  was  first  ap 
plied  to  a  county  east  of  the  Mississippi,  which 
formed  a  part  of  Michigan  Territory.  The  ' i  Iowa 
district"  next  became  western  Wisconsin,  with  a 
population  in  1836  of  ten  thousand  five  hundred 
and  thirty-one.  The  Act  of  Congress  which  took 
effect  July  4,  1838,  established  the  Territory  of 
Iowa.  The  inhabitants  then  numbered  twenty- two 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty.  In  May,  1846, 
a  territorial  convention  fixed  the  limits  of  Iowa  as 
they  exist  to-day.  Congress  and  the  people  ap 
proved.  The  State  was  admitted  into  the  Union 
December  28,  1846.  The  population  had  reached 
one  hundred  and  two  thousand  three  hundred  and 
eighty-eight.  In  the  long  contest  between  sav 
ages  and  civilization,  civilization  won.  Governor 
Robert  Lucas,  twice  governor  of  Ohio  and  presi 
dent  of  the  convention  which  renominated  Presi 
dent  Jackson,  was  the  first  territorial  governor. 
The  third  State  governor,  James  W.  Grimes,  was 
uniquely  and  sternly  fixed  in  his  anti-slavery  and 
temperance  principles.  Under  the  patriotic  Gov 
ernor  Kirkwood,  Iowa  furnished  seventy-eight 
thousand  and  fifty-nine  men  to  the  Union  armies. 
The  brainiest  and  greatest  of  this  State's  historic 
men  was  Justice  Samuel  H.  Miller.  By  the  last 


LOUISIANA    PURCHASE   STATES   133 

census  the  population  of  Iowa  is  two  million  two 
hundred  and  thirty-one  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  fifty-three.  Its  area  is  fifty-six  thousand  and 
twenty-five  square  miles.  The  assessed  value  of  its 
real  estate  is  four  hundred  and  forty  million  seven 
hundred  and  sixty-nine  thousand  nine  hundred  and 
fifty-two  dollars.  The  gross  value  of  the  products 
of  its  manufacturing  and  mechanical  industries  is 
one  hundred  and  sixty-four  million  six  hundred 
and  seventeen  thousand  eight  hundred  and  seventy- 
seven  dollars.  But  its  later  products  in  the  line  of 
strong  public  men  are  more  noteworthy  and  rela 
tively  greater.  We  have  only  space  to  name  Sec- 
cretary  of  the  Treasury  Shaw,  Secretary  of  Agri 
culture  Wilson,  Senators  Allison  and  Dolliver, 
Speaker  Henderson  and  Representatives  Hepburn, 
Cousins  and  Hull. 

MINNESOTA. 

The  fifth  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  States  en 
tered  the  Union  May  11,  1858.  It  was  organized 
as  a  territory  in  March,  1849.  Its  area  in  square 
miles  is  eighty-three  thousand  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five.  Its  present  population  is  one  million 
seven  hundred  and  fifty-one  thousand  three  hun 
dred  and  ninety-four.  Minneapolis  had  two  hun 
dred  and  two  thousand  seven  hundred  and  eighteen 
inhabitants  by  the  last  federal  census.  St.  Paul, 
one  hundred  and  sixty-three  thousand  and  sixty- 
five.  The  former  is  nineteenth,  and  the  latter  twen 
ty-third  in  the  relative  rank  of  cities.  Louis  Hen- 
ncpin  appears  to  have  first  visited  the  regions  em- 


134       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

braced  within  the  State  of  Minnesota.  He  de 
scribed  the  Falls  of  Saint  Anthony  soon  after  he 
made  the  first  rough  picture  of  Niagara  Falls. 
The  enlightened  Frontenac  sent  Perrot  to  the  upper 
Mississippi,  where  he  built  in  Minnesota  Fort  Per 
rot,  known  also  as  Fort  Le  Sueur.  In  1819,  Gov 
ernor  Lewis  Cass  of  Michigan,  with  a  party  num 
bering  forty,  traveled  through  this  territory,  which 
had  lately  been  placed  under  his  jurisdiction.  Alex 
ander  Ramsey  was  the  first  governor  of  the  Terri 
tory  of  Minnesota.  He  was  the  second  governor  of 
the  State  and  for  twelve  years  a  Senator  of  the 
United  States.  Cushman  K.  Davis  became  gov 
ernor  of  Minnesota  in  January,  1874.  Both  these 
able  men  gained  the  highest  distinction  in  the 
United  States  Senate.  William  Windom,  as  Sen 
ator  and  cabinet  minister,  became  widely  known. 
General  James  Shields  and  Henry  M.  Rice,  this 
progressive  State's  first  chosen  Senators  in  Con 
gress,  were  both  patriotic  and  useful  public  men. 
The  State's  name  means  cloudy  or  sky-colored 
water. 

KANSAS. 

The  route  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition 
was  through  Kansas  City,  Kan.,  and  on  to  the 
site  of  Atchison.  There  was  held  the  first  Fourth 
of  July  celebration  ever  held  in  that  then  wilder 
ness  region.  Independence  Creek  was  named  by 
these  alert  explorers.  Lieutenant  Pike  bravely  ex 
plored  Kansas,  and  in  November,  1807,  discovered 
Pike's  Peak.  Andrew  H.  Reeder  became  the  first 


LOUISIANA    PURCHASE   STATES   135 

territorial  governor  of  Kansas  in  1854.    A  census 
of  1855  made  the  population  eight  thousand  five 
hundred  and  one.    John  W.  Geary,  the  third  gov 
ernor,  was  able  and  patriotic,  but  soon  retired  from 
the  bloody  border  scenes,  out  of  which  not  even 
John  Brown  or  Robert  J.  Walker  emerged  with  un- 
smirclied  reputation.    Acting  Governor  Frederick 
P.  Stanton  did  much  to  make  Kansas  a  free  state. 
The  Lecompton  (pro-slavery)  constitution  was  a 
second  time  rejected  by  ten  thousand  majority. 
Kansas  came  into  the  Union  January  29,  1861,  a 
date    since    known    as    "Kansas    day."     From 
1860  to  1870  the  population  increased  two  hun 
dred   and   forty   per   cent.      The   gross   area   of 
the    State    is    eighty-two    thousand    and    eighty 
square  miles;  total  population,  one  million  four 
hundred    and    seventy    thousand    four    hundred 
and  ninety-five  in  1900 ;  assessed  value  of  real  es 
tate,  two  hundred  and  twenty-four  million  nine 
hundred  and  five  thousand  two  hundred  and  thirty- 
seven  dollars.     James  M.  Harvey  was  a  gallant 
soldier,  twice  governor  of  Kansas  and  Senator  of 
the  United  States.    His  worth  was  solid.    Of  those 
who  have  since  passed  away  the  brilliant  John  J. 
Ingalls  and  the  widely-esteemed  Preston  B.  Plumb 
were  truly  national  men. 

NEBRASKA. 

Nebraska  was  organized  as  a  territory  in  1854 
and  admitted  as  a  State  in  1867.  Its  gross  area 
is  seventy-seven  thousand  five  hundred  and  ten 


136       THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

square  miles.  Its  population  in  1900,  one  million 
sixty-six  thousand  three  hundred,  of  which  fifty- 
two  and  nine-tenths  per  cent  are  males.  Only  two 
and  five- tenths  of  the  inhabitants  are  illiterate. 
The  population  in  1860  was  only  twenty-eight 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  forty-one.  Omaha 
contains  one  hundred  and  two  thousand  five  hun 
dred  and  fifty-five  people  and  is  the  thirty-fifth  in 
census  rank.  In  1673,  Father  Marquette  explored 
and  partly  mapped  out  this  part  of  ancient 
Louisiana. 

In  their  outward  trip,  Lewis  and  Clark  en 
camped  many  nights  within  the  limits  of  Nebraska, 
while  making  their  extraordinary  journey  of  four 
thousand  one  hundred  and  thirty- three  miles.  An 
expedition  in  1842,  under  John  C.  Fremont,  passed 
along  the  Platte  Valley.  The  Mormons,  while  mov 
ing  to  Utah,  early  traversed  this  wild  region.  The 
Territory  of  Nebraska  was  blessed,  or  possibly  dis 
tracted,  with  six  governors  in  seven  years.  But 
Alvin  Saunders  of  Iowa,  sent  out  by  President 
Lincoln,  remained  in  office  for  six  years.  The  first 
State  governor,  Daniel  Butler,  was  removed  by  im 
peachment.  The  first  State  constitution,  framed 
in  1871,  was  rejected  by  a  vote  of  the  people.  The 
name  comes  from  bras  and  ne,  Indian  for  "shal 
low  water." 

COLORADO. 

The  measureless  wealth  of  the  mines  and  the 
unsurpassable  beauty  of  nature  in  Colorado  were 
absolutely  unknown  in  1803.  In  1807,  Lieutenant 


LOUISIANA    PURCHASE   STATES   137 

Pike,  after  exploring  the  headwaters  of  the  prin 
cipal  rivers,  was  taken  prisoner  with  his  party  of 
twenty  by  a  much  larger  force  of  Spaniards.  The 
Long  exploring  expedition  of  1819-20,  brought 
back  a  careful  account  of  the  South  Platte  region 
and  the  mountains,  especially  Long's  Peak,  justly 
named  in  honor  of  that  accomplished  officer  of  the 
regular  army. 

In  1859  the  rush  began  for  the  Pike's  Peak  gold, 
the  Gregory  and  the  Jackson  mines.  Sixty  thou 
sand  eager  men  soon  followed  in  the  wake  of  the 
pioneers.  During  the  years  from  1861,  when  a  ter 
ritorial  government  was  organized,  to  1876,  when 
Colorado  was  admitted  as  a  State,  mortals  seemed 
to  be  working  miracles  in  a  thousand  ways.  '  *  Stern 
men  with  empires  in  their  brains"  began  "to 
pitch  new  states  as  old  world  men  pitch  tents." 
From  1880  to  1890  there  was  five  hundred  and 
eighteen  per  cent  of  increase  in  capital  invested  in 
manufacturing  and  mechanical  industries.  The 
value  of  the  products  of  these  industries  reached 
one  hundred  and  two  million  eight  hundred  and 
thirty  thousand  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  dol 
lars  in  1900.  The  assessed  value  of  real  estate  now 
exceeds  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  million  dol 
lars,  with  a  present  population  of  six  hundred 
thousand  and  an  area  of  one  hundred  and  three 
thousand  nine  hundred  and  twenty-five  square 
miles,  Colorado  seems  destined  to  become  the  em 
pire  state  of  the  great  Northwest.  The  State  takes 
its  name  from  the  River  Colorado,  the  Spanish  for 
"ruddy"  or  "red." 


138       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

NORTH   DAKOTA 

was  admitted  as  a  State  in  the  Union  November 
2,  1889,  with  an  area  of  seventy  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  ninety-five  miles.  North  Dakota  had 
been  organized  as  a  separate  territory  March  2, 
1861.  The  State  had  a  population  in  1890  of  one 
hundred  and  eighty-two  thousand  seven  hundred 
and  nineteen.  It  had  increased  in  1900  to  three 
hundred  and  nineteen  thousand  one  hundred  and 
forty-six.  The  value  of  its  real  estate  is  placed  at 
ninety  million  nine  hundred  and  forty-two  thou 
sand  and  nineteen  dollars.  Lewis  and  Clark  passed 
a  winter  near  the  City  of  Mandan.  The  old  fort 
at  Pembina  was  built  by  Lord  Selkirk.  George 
Catlin  made  a  study  of  the  North  Dakota  Indians 
in  1841.  Governor  John  Miller  was  the  first  State 
executive.  The  name  Dakota  signifies  in  the  In 
dian  tongue  "many  allies  or  tribes  in  one." 

SOUTH  DAKOTA 

has  an  area  of  seventy-seven  thousand  six  hun 
dred  and  fifty  square  miles.  Its  population  is  four 
hundred  and  one  thousand  five  hundred  and  sev 
enty.  Its  real  estate  was  valued  at  one  hundred 
and  thirty-two  million  six  hundred  and  fifty-two 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  fifteen  dollars  by  the 
last  census.  The  Territory  of  South  Dakota  was 
organized  March  2,  1861.  It  was  admitted  as  a 
State  November  2,  1889.  The  University  of  South 
Dakota,  at  Vennillion,  has  a  president  and  four- 


LOUISIANA    PURCHASE   STATES  139 

teen  professors.  Nicollet  was  the  first  writer  to 
describe  the  picturesque  beauty  of  this  region.  The 
extreme  length  of  the  State  is  three  hundred  and 
eighty-six  miles  and  its  breadth  two  hundred  and 
forty  miles.  It  is  divided  into  about  equal  parts 
by  the  line  of  the  Missouri  River.  The  Cheyenne 
and  Grand  Rivers  are  the  next  in  size.  Hagerty 
and  Child  have  written  entertaining  books  about 
the  promise  and  fulfillment  of  the  State. 

MONTANA. 

This  State  has  now  a  population  of  one  and  a 
quarter  million.  It  had  less  than  twelve  thousand 
inhabitants  when  organized  as  a  territory  in  1864. 
It  came  into  the  Union  in  1889.  The  population 
increased  two  hundred  and  thirty-seven  and  five- 
tenths  from  1880  to  1890.  Montana's  enormous 
size,  one  hundred  and  forty-six  thousand  and 
eighty  square  miles,  and  its  foreshadowed  great 
ness,  stimulated  the  genius  of  Joaquin  Miller  to 
writer  a  monumental  history  of  the  State,  dis 
tinctly  worthy  of  subject  and  author.  The  great 
Poet  'of  the  Sierras  says  with  fitting  truth  and 
grace:  ''Here,  great  men  in  the  glorious  pursuits 
of  peace,  laid  the  foundation  stones  without  cement 
of  blood,  and  reared  a  great  State  out  of  material 
fresh  from  the  hand  of  God."  And  this  other  ut 
terance  was  true,  in  1803,  of  the  eleventh  to  enter 
the  Union  of  the  Great  Treaty  States.  "But  here 
lay  Montana,  a  thousand  miles  from  any  sea;  a 
wilderness  in  the  very  heart  of  an  untrodden  wil- 


140       THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

derness,  with  savages  on  the  four  sides  of  her  and 
savages  in  every  pass  and  valley."  No  one  can 
condense  this  best  of  the  State  histories.  The  musi 
cal  name  from  the  French  mont  suggests  the  home 
or  holy  place  of  the  mountains. 

WYOMING. 

Wyoming,  an  Indian  word  meaning  "broad 
plain, ' '  the  twelfth  and  last  of  the  Purchase  States, 
which  came  into  the  Union  in  1890,  has  now  a  pop 
ulation  of  a  hundred  thousand  and  nearly  an  equal 
number  of  square  miles  of  territory.  Indians  and 
wild  beasts  held  possession  of  this  region  until 
1806,  when  white  trappers  and  fur  traders  became 
primitive  commercial  travelers.  The  first  author 
ized  explorer  was  Captain  Bonneville.  John  Col 
ter,  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  party,  was  the  first 
American  to  trap  and  trade  in  Wyoming.  Ezekiel 
Williams  and  party  did  splendid  pioneer  work  un 
der  appalling  hardships.  The  Yellowstone  Park, 
the  Wonderland  of  America,  is  worth  more  than 
we  paid  for  the  whole  Louisiana  empire. 

OKLAHOMA. 

From  the  domain  acquired  by  the  Great  treaty 
were  carved  out  twelve  large  states  and  two  terri 
tories,  soon  to  become  states.  Oklahoma  has  at 
present  a  population  of  over  four  hundred  thou 
sand,  although  an  area  of  but  thirty-nine  thousand 
and  thirty  square  miles.  The  increase  of  inhab 
itants  in  ten  vears  has  been  over  five  hundred  and 


LOUISIANA    PURCHASE   STATES   141 

forty-four  per  cent.  During  the  same  period  the 
increase  of  invested  capital  has  been  more  than 
thirty-four  hundred  and  nine  per  cent,  These  fig 
ures  tell  enough  in  condensed  form. 

The  Indian  Territory,  with  an  area  of  thirty-one 
thousand  four  hundred  square  miles,  can  here  rea 
sonably  be  included,  a,s  it  is  mainly  a  part  of  the 
Louisiana  Purchase  territory.  Its  complete  or 
ganization  as  a  member  of  the  National  Union  will 
be  delayed  no  longer  than  the  National  Legislature 
deems  it  best  for  the  interests  of  the  entire  Nation. 
As  the  actual  Treaty  boundary  line  has  never  yet 
been  topographically  marked  or  defined  we  are  still 
unable  to  name  the  exact  area  of  the  purchased 
domain. 

It  should  be  added  that  about  one-third  of  Min 
nesota  and  Colorado,  and  perhaps  one-fifth  of 
Wyoming  and  Montana,  are  not  embraced  in  the 
Louisiana  Purchase. 

From  what  the  historical  records  contain,  the 
conclusion  is  inevitable  that  Eobert  R.  Livingston 
negotiated  the  Louisiana  treaty;  that  Alexander 
Hamilton  was  its  chief  promoter;  that  Franklin 
and  Vergennes  were  large  factors  because  their 
treaty  of  peace  work  of  1782-3  led  us  to  the  Mis 
sissippi,  and  that  Napoleon  and  Jefferson,  being 
in  supreme  power,  officially  sanctioned  what  "the 
empire  of  circumstances,"  prior  events  and  other 
men  brought  about. 


142       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 
SUPPLEMENTAL. 

CBEATOKS  AND  PKESERVERS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

The  foregoing  History  of  the  Louisiana  Pur 
chase  has  shown  who  were  the  far-sighted  states 
men  chiefly,  not  ex  officio,  instrumental  in  bringing 
about  the  enlargement  of  the  Nation.  The  other 
great  men  who  created  and  preserved  the  Repub 
lic  are  entitled  to  at  least  equal  honor  and  rever 
ence.  America's  foremost  patriots  and  benefactors 
are  given  the  following  approximate  relative  rank : 
Washington,  Hamilton,  Lincoln,  Franklin,  Marsh 
all,  Webster,  Grant,  Livingston,  Jackson.  We  lay 
stress  only  on  the  preeminence  of  the  group,  which 
includes  those  who  have  done  the  most  to  make  the 
Union  strong,  enduring  and  great.  All  these  illus 
trious  men  either  aided  to  prevent  England  from 
conquering  the  Louisiana  domain  or  helped  to  ac 
quire  or  preserve  it.  Hence  the  whole  story  is  not 
told  unless  brief  reference  is  made  to  their  fruitful 
toils  and  sublime  sacrifices.  These  nine  heroes 
of  war  and  of  peace  best  teach  patriotism  and  Love 
of  Country,  by  example. 


PATRIOTS   AND   BENEFACTORS    143 


FOREMOST    PATRIOTS    AND    BENEFAC 
TORS. 

WASHINGTON. 

The  boyhood  of  George  Washington  differed  not 
from  that  of  other  boys  until  he  reached  sixteen. 
From  that  age  until  he  was  nineteen,  Lord  Fairfax 
placed  in  his  manly  hands  the  large  ressponsibility 
of  surveying  all  his  lands  in  East  and  West  Vir 
ginia.  In  this  forest  life  and  mountain  air,  the 
young  surveyor  developed  a  splendid  physique  and 
a  round,  tree-trunk  body,  built  for  endurance.  In 
almost  daily  correspondence  and  in  frequent  per 
sonal  contact  with  this  accomplished  Scotch  noble 
man,  his  manners  and  character  were  perfected. 
By  reading  Sir  Matthew  Hale 's  ' l  Contemplations, ' ' 
and  like  solid  books,  his  morals  were  elevated  and 
his  understanding  broadened.  Early  military  re 
verses,  not  successes,  evolved  the  qualities  of  pru 
dence,  caution,  patience,  foresight  and  fortitude 
under  calamity.  Inherited  estates,  a  good  mother, 
a  fortunate  marriage,  developed  domestic  tastes. 
These  traits  and  virtues  and  a  certain  solidity,  dig 
nity  and  weight  of  character,  frequent  companions 
of  wealth  and  worth,  brought  Washington  into  his 
first  broad  field  of  action  as  Commander-in-Chief. 
Here  he  struggled,  suffered  and  grew  strong.  A 
resolute  calmness  and  a  resourceful  strength  un- 


144       THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

der  disaster,  made  him  the  conqueror  of  Cornwallis 
and  the  creator  of  his  Country. 

A  fitting  scene  for  some  immortal  limner  was 
that  at  Newburg  where,  having  broken  down  in 
reading  the  letter  in  which  he  puts  aside  with 
scorn  the  kingly  crown,  he  adjusts  his  spectacles 
and  with  emotion  observes:  "You  see,  my  coun 
trymen,  I  have  not  only  grown  old  but  grown  blind 
in  your  service!"  His  surrendering  his  commis 
sion  and  every  symbol  of  power,  immortalized  by 
Trumbull,  goes  beyond  anything  recorded  of  Plu 
tarch's  heroes,  in  self-abnegation.  He  led  the 
armies  that  gained  our  independence;  presided 
over  the  convention  that  made  our  Constitution, 
and  guided  the  ship  of  state  for  eight  years  on  her 
true  course,  without  one  dollar  of  compensation 
for  his  priceless  services.  To  bestow  time  and 
labors  of  such  immeasurable  value,  without  re 
ward,  is  unknown  in  the  history  of  mankind.  The 
Gates-Conway  cabal,  lasting  but  a  year,  was  pain 
less  compared  with  the  Virginia  political  combine 
of  twenty- four  years'  duration.  It  filled  the  soul 
of  the  first  Executive  with  sorrowing  grief  that 
the  three  chief  politicians  of  his  own  State  should 
conspire  to  break  down  his  administration  that 
each  in  turn  might  fill  his  own  high  place.  He 
trembled  lest  these  ambitious  men  who  impugned 
every  act  and  utterance  of  his  official  life,  should 
belittle  and  defame  him  after  death.  But  pos 
terity  has  rightly  assigned  to  the  Founder  of  the 
Eepublic  the  stately  place  of  the  First  Historic 
American !  That  other  dear  immortal,  Lincoln,  adds 


PATRIOTS  AND   BENEFACTORS    145 

his  weightiest  words  to  a  world's  verdict:  "Wash 
ington  is  the  mightiest  name  of  earth."    *     * 
"In  solemn  awe  pronounce  the  name,  and  in  its 
naked,  deathless  splendor  leave  it  shining  on." 

HAMILTON. 

"I  have  known  all  the  great  men  of  my  time," 
said  Talleyrand,  *  '  I  have  known  Fox,  Pitt,  Burke, 
Metternich,  and,  of  course,  the  first  Napoleon,  but 
I  never  knew  so  great  a  man  as  Alexander  Ham 
ilton."  This  many-sided  genius  was  the  fruit  of 
a  common-law  marriage  openly  entered  into  by 
one  of  the  noble  Hamilton  family  of  Scotland  and 
a  gifted  woman  of  French  descent.  The  precocious 
talents  of  the  child  brought  him  from  the  Island 
of  Nevis  to  New  York  to  be  educated.  He  was 
broadly  educated,  but  chiefly  by  himself  and  by 
Washington  in  the  finishing  school  of  war,  where 
there  were  few  vacations.  Prior  to  being  chief  and 
confidential  secretary  at  nineteen,  on  the  staff  of 
the  Great  Commander,  he  had  gained  distinction 
as  patriot-writer,  orator  and  captain  of  artillery. 
So  early  as  1774,  the  boy-patriot  proclaimed  that 
there  was  no  resource  for  the  colonies  but  trade 
restriction  "or  in  a  resistance  vi  et  armis."  Dur 
ing  this  year  Jefferson  was  against  independence. 
From  the  day  that  Hamilton  began  to  write  the 
military  correspondence  down  to  the  writing  of 
The  Farewell  Address,  the  labors  and  services  of 
the  Chief  and  his  aid,  in  war  and  in  peace,  were 
inseparable.  Jointly  with  Washington,  or  as  the 
originator,  the  soldier-statesman  was  behind  nearly 


10 


146       THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

all  that  is  best  and  most  enduring  in  our  political 
institutions. 

The  enumeration  of  his  specific  services,  which 
were  enormous,  can  only  be  partial.  As  chief  of 
staff,  through  adroit  diplomacy  he  induced  Gen 
eral  Gates  to  transfer  troops  at  a  critical  juncture 
when  that  ambitious  rival  of  Washington  would 
probably  have  disobeyed  a  direct  order.  In  1780, 
seven  years  before  the  Constitution  under  which 
we  live  to-day  was  framed,  Hamilton  wrote  on  the 
head  of  a  drum  a  letter  to  James  Duane  in  which 
are  embodied  the  fundamental  principles  of  that 
great  charter  of  our  liberties.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  he  did  more  than  any  two  men  to  bring  about 
the  framing  of  the  supreme  law  and  more  than  any 
three  others  to  secure  its  ratification.  The  influ 
ence  of  The  Federalist  arguments  and  of  his  tri 
umph  of  reason  in  the  Poughkeepsie,  New  York, 
Convention,  was  unique  and  unparalleled.  In  put 
ting  all  the  machinery  of  government  in  successful 
motion,  the  first  Minister  of  Finance  was  the  guid 
ing  and  controlling  force.  He  solidified  the  Union 
by  funding  the  State  debts  contracted  in  a  common 
cause;  by  founding  our  National  credit  on  a  rock 
as  impregnable  as  Gibraltar.  He  provided  a  sink 
ing  fund  for  the  payment  of  all  debts  when  con 
tracted;  he  created  the  American  system  of  pro 
tecting  duties;  he  established  post  routes  and 
handled  with  high  success  the  mails  of  the  United 
States;  he  drew  the  acts  organizing  the  war  and 
navy  departments  on  their  present  basis,  in  1798 ; 
he  was  the  first  statesman  to  declare  for  expansion 


PATRIOTS   AND   BENEFACTORS    U7 

and  to  proclaim  that  Louisiana  was  essential  to 
the  permanence  of  the  Union;  he  was  chiefly  in 
strumental  in  suppressing  the  Whisky  Rebellion 
and  in  founding  a  National  Bank  and  West  Point 
Academy.  The  learned  President  Garfield  was 
wont  to  say  that  ' i  Hamilton  was  the  greatest  man 
that  ever  trod  this  continent !" 

LINCOLN. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  trained  in  the  hard  and 
rigid  school  of  adversity,  that  school  which  has 
developed  more,  truly  great  men  than  all  the  uni 
versities.  Unvarying  prosperity  brings  to  the  sur 
face  conceit,  selfishness,  self-assertion  and  all  forms 
of  self-worship.  This  son  of  toil  had  no  early  suc 
cesses,  no  extraordinary  genius,  no  belles-lettres 
learning,  no  handsome  person,  to  spoil  him.  His 
school  training  was  limited  to  eleven  months.  His 
manual  labor  and  surveying  brought  him  a  bare 
living.  For  his  services  in  the  Black  Hawk  war 
he  gained  no  military  glory.  From  his  eight  years 
in  the  State  Legislature  of  Illinois  came  no  distinc 
tion.  His  one  term  in  Congress  brought  him  no 
renown.  His  practice  at  the  bar  earned  him  neither 
wealth  nor  conceded  preeminence.  His  candidacy 
for  Vice-President  was  unsuccessful.  His  debates 
with  Douglas  lifted  him  into  the  national  arena 
and  first  clearly  demonstrated  his  wonderful  pow 
ers  as  a  reasoner.  He  lost  the  Illinois  Senatorship 
through  Trumbull,  when  it  was  almost  within  his 
grasp.  Lincoln's  first  unqualified  triumph  came 
when  he  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency  in  May, 


148       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

1860.  Then  followed  misrepresentation  and  de 
traction  by  one  of  the  great  political  parties, 
throughout  the  Union.  To  make  his  fate  sadder 
his  constitutional  election  was  the  signal  for  the 
denial  of  his  rightful  authority  to  preside  over 
them  by  one-third  of  the  States,  the  denial  aggra 
vated  by  the  general  defamation  of  his  character. 
When  this  was  followed  by  widespread  sedition, 
privy  conspiracy  and  rebellion,  involving  the  ulti 
mate  loss  of  a  half  million  lives,  is  it  strange  that 
the  patriot's  face  wore  an  expression  of  infinite 
sadness  ?  But  the  supreme  triumphs  of  misunder 
stood  mortals  come  after  death.  Immortality 
means  that  the  deeds  of  great  men  are  eternally 
bearing  fruit,  No  man  ever  grew  to  greatness  so 
manifestly  fast  as  this  Chief  of  State.  His  first 
inaugural  was  in  persuasive  logic  great ;  the  eman 
cipation  proclamation  and  second  inaugural  were 
in  purpose  and  pathos  greater,  while  the  Gettys 
burg  battlefield  oration  is  called  the  most  tenderly 
eloquent  ever  delivered  in  honor  of  the  dead. 
Among  Lincoln's  most  marked  qualities  were  prac 
tical  wisdom;  depth  and  breadth  of  sympathy  for 
humanity ;  power  as  a  logician ;  unending  patience ; 
penetration  into  the  motives  of  men;  an  eagerness 
to  be  as  merciful  as  the  safety  of  the  Republic 
would  permit.  While  not  perhaps  so  strenuous  an 
executive  force  as  Bismarck  or  Stanton,  as  a  far- 
seeing,  deliberative  statesman  he  surpassed  all  the 
great  men  of  his  time ;  as  also  in  moral  elevation 
and  in  wisely  promoting  the  permanent  welfare  of 
his  Country  and  mankind.  He  was  a  moulder  of 


PATRIOTS   AND   BENEFACTORS    149 

men's  opinions  and  minds,  his  own  being  the  mas 
ter  mind  of  his  age.  The  most  popular  of  the 
Presidents  at  this  time,  and  it  may  be  for  all  time, 
are  Lincoln  and  McKinley.  The  blood  of  the 
martyrs  cements  and  perpetuates  the  State. 

FRANKLIN. 

Ben  Franklin,  as  he  is  familiarly  named,  was 
born  twenty-six  years  earlier  than  Washington  and 
died  in  1790.  The  philosopher  and  the  hero  were 
the  first  of  our  large  historic  men  to  see  the  light 
and  the  first  to  pass  away.  Franklin  was  born 
wise  and  gained  knowledge  by  dexterity.  He  was 
self-taught  and  learned  more  by  the  public  lamps 
than  from  the  public  schools.  He  was  disciplined 
in  the  world  of  science,  of  men  and  books.  Ben 
jamin,  though  not  a  saint,  became  renowned  as  a 
moralist,  great  as  a  philosopher  and  still  greater 
as  a  diplomatist.  "Poor  Richard"  made  multi 
tudes  rich  Richards.  Thrift,  economy,  sobriety, 
industry,  helping  one  another,  and  the  divine  gos 
pel  of  toleration,  were  first  broadly  preached  in 
American  by  this  later  Confucius.  Franklin 
lured  with  his  kite  the  lightning  from  the  clouds 
before  he  helped  to  wrest  the  scepter  from  tyrants. 
His  fame  had  preceded  him  to  Europe  when  he 
went  there  as  the  agent  of  one,  two,  then  three 
American  colonies.  He  taught  Burke,  Shelburne 
and  Lord  Chatham  much  that  they  so  eloquently 
proclaimed  about  conciliation  and  peace  with 
America.  But  the  crowning  achievements  of  his 


150       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

life  were  embraced  within  five  years  in  Paris,  after 
lie  had  entered  his  seventy-second  year.  In  1778, 
the  vitally  important  Treaty  of  Amity  and  Alli 
ance  was  negotiated.  Under  the  stipulations  of 
of  this  treaty  France  gave  the  hard-pressed  col 
onies  nearly  ten  millions  of  dollars  in  direct  loans, 
besides  the  aid  of  fifteen  thousand  well-equipped 
soldiers  and  sailors  who  were  subsisted  and  paid 
by  France.  The  later  beneficent  Treaty  of  Peace 
with  Great  Britain  doubled  the  area  of  our  coun 
try  and  brought  about  the  formal  recognition  of 
our  independence  the  world  over.  In  the  solution 
of  that  liberty  problem  these  two  great  conven 
tions  of  1778  and  1782  were  essential  factors.  The 
four  chief  agents  in  securing  the  permanent  peace 
of  1782-3  were  Franklin,  Vergennes,  for  France; 
Lord  Shelburne,  for  England,  and  Secretary  R. 
E.  Livingston,  under  whose  instructions  the 
American  envoys  were  acting.  Adams  and  Jay 
were  serviceable  in  holding  fast  with  persuasive 
logical  force  to  the  favorable  terms  of  the  pre 
liminary  treaty.  Franklin  with  infinite  tact  and 
adroitness  had  succeeded  in  his  plan  of  selecting 
Oswald  and  Hartley  for  the  two  principal  British 
negotiators.  Both  were  old  personal  friends.  Our 
first  and  greatest  diplomatist,  with  pen  and  speech, 
continued  to  serve  his  Country  to  the  end.  and 
acted  as  moderator  or  peacemaker  in  the  conven 
tion-conflicts  of  1787.  Honored  and  lamented  in 
two  hemispheres,  he  died  as  he  had  lived,  a  philoso 
pher.  The  prevailing  fiction  should  not  obscure 
the  historic  fact  that  Franklin  was  the  oldest  and 


PATRIOTS   AND   BENEFACTORS    151 

wisest  of  the  five  authors  of  the  much-amended 
Independence  Declaration  of  1776.  He  was  thirty- 
seven  years  older  than  Jefferson,  with  a  then 
vastly  wider  range  of  experience. 

MARSHALL. 

John  Marshall,  the  fourth  Chief  Justice,  is  the 
only  American  to  whom  the  term  Great,  has  been 
habitually  applied.  How  he  became  the  world's 
first  jurist,  or  at  least  the  peer  of  Mansfield,  Eldon 
and  Holt,  has  never  been  made  quite  clear.  No 
adequate  life  of  Marshall  has  yet  been  written. 
But  we  know  that  he  grew  to  unexcelled  greatness 
while  on  the  Supreme  Bench.  He  was  manifestly 
a  born  logician  and  jurist.  He  had  by  nature  the 
judicial  temperment;  also  those  qualities  of  mind 
and  habits  of  analytic  concentration  which  pecu 
liarly  fitted  him  for  the  highest  judicial  station. 
Marshall's  participation,  and  that  of  his  brave 
father,  in  the  hardest  fought  battles  of  the  Revo 
lution  taught  him  that  a  Union  that  cost  so  dearly 
in  blood  was  worth  preserving.  During  the  dread 
ful  winter  at  Valley  Forge,  a  thousand  good- 
natured  and  ill-natured  disputes  arose  between 
officers,  which  were  settled  by  umpire  Marshall 
through  impregnable  decisions  from  which  there 
were  no  successful  appeals.  This,  with  his  fre 
quent  service  on  military  courts,  was  his  first  train 
ing  for  his  supreme  judicial  mission.  A  year 
under  the  inspiring  instruction  of  Chancellor 
Wythe,  with  his  severe  prior  studies,  prepared  him 


152        THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

for  the  bar  and  for  the  State  Legislature.  Such 
advancement  did  he  make  at  the  law  that  in  the 
Virginia  Constitutional  Convention  of  1788,  when 
our  new  made  Magna  Charta  was  fiercely  assailed, 
Madison  and  Marshall  proved  more  than  a  match 
for  Patrick  Henry,  George  Mason,  Dawson,  Gray- 
son,  Harrison  and  Monroe,  the  enemies  of  ratifica 
tion.  In  1798,  the  future  jurist  was  sent  by  Presi 
dent  Adams  on  a  diplomatic  mission  to  France 
with  C.  C.  Pinckney  and  Elbridge  Gerry.  It  was 
soon  discovered  that  the  French  officials  preferred 
to  be  liberally  bribed  before  proceeding  to  discuss 
the  peace  business.  Hence  the  indignant  protest 
voiced  by  Marshall  and  Pinckney:  "Millions  for 
defense;  not  one  cent  for  tribute/'  His  election 
to  Congress,  where  he  gained  distinction,  was  fol 
lowed  by  his  appointment  as  Secretary  of  War, 
then  Secretary  of  State,  in  1800.  January  31, 
1801,  he  was  nominated  by  President  Adams  and 
unanimously  confirmed  by  the  Senate,  Chief  Jus 
tice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 
Making  Marshall  Chief  Justice,  John  Adams  in 
later  years  declared,  was  the  proudest  act  of  his 
life.  In  this  place  of  supreme  judicial  power  John 
Marshall's  high  purpose  was  to  make  this  Union  a 
"more  perfect  Union."  Hence  he  put  into  the 
form  of  judicial  judgments  the  wise  and  salu 
tary  constitutional  interpretations  of  his  own,  and 
of  Hamilton,  as  set  forth  in  The  Federalist  and  in 
the  latter 's  great  State  papers.  He  found  that  all 
save  one  of  the  chief  and  essential  powers  and 
prerogatives  of  sovereignty  had  happily  been  con- 


PATRIOTS  AND   BENEFACTORS    153 

f erred  on  the  Nation,  not  the  State;  that  the  Re 
public  had  the  right  to  do  what  would  make  it 
strong  and  great;  had  the  right  and  the  duty  to 
protect  and  to  control  the  governed  as  individual 
citizens ;  that  we  had  one  Country,  not  thirteen  or 
forty-five ;  that  a  part  was  not  politically  greater 
than  the  whole,  and  that  the  supreme  law,  liberty 
and  unity,  were  inseparable,  indestructible  and 
hence  perpetual. 

In  public  and  in  private  life  the  Great  Chief 
Justice  was  one  of  the  purest  of  all  historic  men. 
He  should  ever  be  placed  before  the  youth  of  all 
lands  as  the  best  type  of  public  and  personal 
morality  known  among  the  world's  greatest  intel 
lectual  characters. 

WEBSTER. 

The  belief  seems  to  be  growing  that  Daniel 
Webster  is  the  world's  first  orator.  He  has  long 
been  the  foremost  on  this  continent.  As  a  large- 
minded  statesman  he  ranks  second  to  Hamilton 
only.  As  an  advocate  he  has  never  been  excelled, 
in  this  Country,  if  indeed  equalled.  Measured  by 
the  intellectual  and  oratorical  standards  he  is  the 
greatest  of  all  American  Senators.  As  Secretary 
of  State  he  surpassed  in  achievement  Marshall, 
Marcy,  Madison  or  Jefferson.  The  grand,  god-like, 
seeming-superhuman  qualities  of  the  Great  Ex 
pounder  of  the  Constitution  have  been  adequately 
set  forth  by  such  able  eulogists  as  Choate,  Lodge, 
McCall,  Curtis  and  others.  It  comes  only  within 
our  province  to  call  to  mind  some  specific  services 


154       THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

to  his  Country  of  this  broad  benefactor.  His  over 
whelming  refutation  in  1830  of  the  "  peaceable 
secession"  arguments  of  Senator  Hayne,  of  South 
Carolina,  postponed  disunion  until  the  free  States 
grew  strong  enough  to  preserve  the  Union.  His 
two  Bunker  Hill  monument  orations,  the  address 
at  Plymouth,  the  tear-compelling  tenderness  of  his 
plea  in  the  cause  of  Dartmouth  College,  even  his 
great  legal  and  constitutional  discussions,  were 
quickening  and  stimulating  to  the  patriotism  of 
the  people  the  land  over.  Webster  revived  the 
broad  nationalism  of  the  best  of  the  Fathers,  and 
by  his  enchanting  eloquence  made  the  salutary 
supremacy  of  the  Nation  a  political  entity  of  en 
during  beauty.  Sitting  at  the  feet  of  Washington, 
Hamilton  and  Marshall,  he  rehabilitated  and 
reclothed  their  nobly  patriotic  teachings  in  robes 
of  radiant  and  inspiring  grandeur.  Not  to  yield 
to  the  Republic  a  paramount  allegiance  was  to  this 
intellectual  king  of  men  the  one  unpardonable 
political  sin.  Webster  perfected  a  national  crim 
inal  code  of  procedure,  a  similar  State  code  for 
Louisiana  having  immortalized  Edward  Living 
ston.  He  materially  promoted  the  construction  of 
the  Cumberland  road  and  other  great  National  in 
ternal  improvements.  He  successfully  resisted  the 
attempts  of  the  followers  of  Jefferson  to  curtail 
the  powers  and  hence  destroy  the  dignity  of  the 
Supreme  Court.  He  enforced  with  resistless  logic 
the  broad,  national  view  that  a  Senator  was  a 
Senator  of  the  United  States,  not  merely  a  political 
agent  of  the  petty  district  which  sent  him.  In 


PATRIOTS   AND   BENEFACTORS    155 

1832-3,  he  powerfully  supported  President  Jack 
son's  Nullification  Proclamation  and  his  efficacious 
Force  Bill,  knowing  that  all  bills  are  "force"  bills 
and  all  laws  force  laws.  In  1842,  he  negotiated 
the  advantageous  Maine  boundary  treaty,  proving 
himself  more  than  a  match  for  Lord  Ashburton. 
The  famous  Hulsemann  letter  did  honor  to  his 
uncompromising  Americanism.  Notwithstanding 
his  indefensible  course  after  his  defeat  for  the 
Whig  Presidential  nomination  in  1852,  and  his 
occasional  lapses  from  strict  ethical  morality,  Web 
ster's  fame  will  reach  down  the  centuries.  His 
voice  was  deep  and  sonorous;  his  presence  com 
manding  and  majestic  and  the  grandeur  of  his 
whole  aspect  when  in  action  seemed  to  suggest  the 
Thunderer  of  Mt.  Olympus.  He  was  as  Mr.  Sum- 
ner  called  him,  "the  god-like  Daniel." 

GRANT. 

For  doing  more  in  the  field  than  any  other  Great 
Commander  to  preserve  the  existence  of  the  Re 
public  when  its  life  was  imperiled,  General  Grant 
became  a  lasting  benefactor  to  his  Country  and 
mankind.  Of  course,  Thomas,  Sherman,  Sheridan, 
Meade  and  thousands  of  most  deserving  others, 
rendered  invaluable  assistance.  Grant's  campaigns 
were  all  victorious ;  there  were  some  repulses  but 
no  defeats.  He  had  wonderful  poise  and  a  mani 
fest  genius  for  war.  He  had  a  bull- terrier  tenacity, 
and  would  never  admit  that  he  was  beaten.  He 
believed  in  hard  front  and  flank  fighting  more  than 


156       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

in  strategy  or  surprises.  He  moved  immediately 
upon  the  enemy's  works  and  fought  it  out  on  the 
chosen  line  if  it  took  a  whole  summer.  He  showed 
unparalleled  magnanimity  in  the  hour  of  final  vic 
tory.  A  grateful  people  soon  made  him  their  civil 
Chief  Magistrate.  But  eighty  electoral  votes  were 
cast  against  him.  When  plans  to  pay  the  public 
debt  in  paper  promises  to  pay,  abounded, 
President  Grant  put  an  end  to  all  such  dishonest 
schemes  by  one  bold  utterance  in  his  first  inau 
gural  :  "To  protect  the  national  honor,  every  dol 
lar  of  the  Government  indebtedness  should  be 
paid  in  gold,  unless  otherwise  expressly  stipulated 
in  the  contract.  Let  it  be  understood  that  no 
repudiator  of  one  farthing  of  our  public  debt  will 
be  trusted  in  public  place,  and  it  will  go  far  toward 
strengthening  a  credit  which  ought  to  be  the  best 
in  the  world,  and  will  ultimately  enable  us  to  re 
place  the  debt  with  bonds  bearing  less  interest  than 
we  now  pay." 

The  settlement  of  the  Alabama  claims,  through 
the  Geneva  Tribunal  of  Arbitration,  was  one  of 
Grant's  victories  of  peace  which  marks  an  era  in 
civilization.  A  little  later  the  infamous  Ku  Klux 
clans  were  by  him  effectually  suppressed.  The 
message  vetoing  the  Inflation  bill  of  1874  was 
eminently  wise  and  right  in  the  light  of  to-day. 
During  his  trip  around  the  world,  in  1879,  Gen 
eral  Grant  was  honored  by  governments  and  by 
great  men  as  no  American  has  yet  been  honored. 
His  business  failures  proved  that  a  great  soldier 
may  be  in  business  a  babe  at  the  bottle.  But  the 


PATRIOTS   AND   BENEFACTORS    157 

integrity  of  his  intentions  was  never  in  doubt,  not 
even  when  ring  politicians  were  at  one  time  exer 
cising  too  much  control  over  public  affairs.  His 
candidacy  for  a  third  term  of  the  Presidency  was 
politically  a  sad  mistake.  Grant's  place  in  history 
is  in  the  first  group  of  the  world's  greatest  sol 
diers,  which  includes  Caesar,  Alexander,  Hannibal, 
Marlborough,  Von  Moltke,  Wellington,  Bonaparte 
and  Frederick  the  Great. 

Writing  a  great  book  while  in  the  clutches  of 
death,  which  lifted  his  family  to  affluence,  was 
the  bravest  and  noblest  thing  a  stricken  hero  ever 
did,  in  peace  or  war.  His  pen  dropped  from  his 
hand  only  at  the  call  of  death ! 

"And  now  in  honor's  glorious  bed  at  rest," 

LIVINGSTON. 

Eobert  E.  Livingston  was  the  most  eminent 
of  the  Livingston-Manor  family  that  had  eight 
historic  men  in  its  two  Scotch  and  American 
branches.  Janet  Livingston,  the  sister  of  the 
brainy  Robert  and  the  brilliant  Edward,  be 
came  the  wife  and  widow  of  General  Richard 
Montgomery,  that  ideal  hero  who  fell  lead 
ing  the  assault  on  Quebec  on  the  last  day  of 
December,  1775,  after  gallantly  capturing  St. 
Johns  and  Montreal.  Robert  R,,  when  promoted 
from  the  honorable  post  of  Recorder  of  New  York 
City  to  the  second  Continental  Congress,  became 
in  1776  one  of  the  five  authors  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  The  history  of  this  instrument 


158       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

is  contained  in  a  few  words.  The  subject  was  con 
sidered  in  and  out  of  Congress  for  two  years. 
Then  a  committee  of  five  was  appointed  to  draft  a 
declaration,  which  committee  discussed  the  subject 
for  five  weeks,  at  the  end  of  which  time  what  the 
declaration  should  contain  was  agreed  upon.  Mr. 
Jefferson  was  instructed  to  put. the  conclusions  of 
the  committee  in  rhetorical  phrase.  But  over  forty 
changes  were  made  in  the  original  draft,  by  the 
committee,  and  by  Congress.  The  Virginia  notion 
that  Franklin,  Adams,  Sherman  and  Livingston 
neglected  or  shirked  their  duties,  and  that  a  youth 
of  thirty-three  did  all  and  became  the  sole 
"author,"  is  now  too  preposterous  for  our  alert 
school  boys  to  believe.  Three  other  significant 
services  to  his  Country  awaited  the  activities  of 
Livingston.  In  1781,  he  was  made  Secretary  of 
Foreign  Affairs  by  the  Congress  of  the  Confedera 
tion.  In  this  high  office  he  gave  the  instructions 
to  John  Adams  which  resulted  in  the  important 
Treaty  of  Amity  and  Commerce  with  the  Nether 
lands  of  October  8,  1782,  and  he  also  formulated 
all  the  instructions  to  Franklin,  Adams  and  Jay, 
when  in  Paris,  which  brought  about  the  vastly 
more  important  Treaties  of  Peace  with  Great 
Britain  of  1782-3.  These  preliminary  and  defini 
tive  treaties  doubled  our  national  domain,  carrying 
our  boundaries  to  the  Mississippi  and  granting  to 
us  its  free  navigation.  He  supported  effectively  in 
the  New  York  Convention  the  National  Constitu 
tion.  A  still  larger  direct  service  was  performed 
by  Robert  R.  Livingston  in  April,  1803,  when  he 


PATRIOTS  AND   BENEFACTORS    159 

in  person  negotiated  the  Louisiana  Purchase 
Treaty,  without  one  line  of  relevant  instructions 
from  this  side  of  the  ocean.  As  our  Envoy  Ex 
traordinary  in  France  he  took  instant  advantage 
of  Bonaparte's  willingness  to  sell  all  his  posses 
sions  on  this  continent  to  the  Americans.  The 
great  treaty  which  added  over  nine  hundred  thou 
sand  square  miles  to  the  Republic  was  practically 
the  work  of  three  days.  It  was  virtually  negotiated 
before  Monroe  was  received  by  Talleyrand  or 
officially  recognized  by  Napoleon.  The  large  im 
port  of  this  transaction  was  first  grasped  and  first 
proclaimed  by  Livingston.  Tardy  justice  is  now 
being  done  the  statesman,  diplomatist  and  jurist, 
who  administered  the  oath  of  office  to  President 
Washington  while  first  Chancellor  of  New  York, 
in  which  high  office  he  reached  great  eminence. 
The  State  of  New  York,  recognizing  his  great 
services,  has  sent  his  statue  in  bronze  to  adorn  the 
American  Pantheon  at  Washington.  Pie  was  a 
noble  patron  of  science,  art  and  literature.  His 
timely  financial  support  to  Robert  Fulton  rendered 
steam  navigation  practically  successful. 

JACKSON. 

Without  the  maintenance  of  the  constitutional 
and  territorial  integrity  of  the  Republic,  the  Louis 
iana  Acquisition  would  have  been  comparatively 
valueless.  Hence  a  meritorious  hero  and  patriot 
who  twice  saved  the  Union  from  threatened  de 
struction  must  not  be  left  out  of  the  list  of  worthiest 


160       THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

Americans.  Jackson's  rise  from  poverty  to  power 
was  even  more  remarkable  than  Lincoln's.  His 
father  died  before  Andrew  was  born.  A  mother  in 
penury  could  afford  little  care.  The  training  re 
ceived  at  cock-fights  and  horse-races  was  not  cal 
culated  to  develop  the  moral  virtues,  serenity  of 
temper  or  an  unvarying  regard  for  the  feelings  of 
others.  Jackson's  faults  were  inherited  or  were 
fastened  upon  him  by  the  harshest  and  roughest 
early  environments.  The  gradations  in  his  upward 
career  were  saddler,  farmer,  lawyer,  Public  Prose 
cutor,  Representative  in  Congress,  Senator,  State 
Judge,  Brigadier-General  of  Volunteers,  Major- 
General  of  Regulars,  again  United  States  Senator, 
then  President.  He  seemed  not  at  home  or  at  ease 
in  Congress.  A  cry  for  help  after  the  horrible 
massacre  at  Fort  Minis  aroused  all  that  was  noblest 
in  Jackson  and  opened  to  him  his  true  field.  Rais 
ing  over  two  thousand  men  while  suffering  excru 
ciating  pain  from  wounds,  he  pursued  the  red- 
handed  savages  with  relentless  fury  until  he  gave 
the  Creeks  their  quietus  at  Talladega.  Command 
ing  the  Department  of  the  South  in  1814,  he  held 
Mobile,  captured  Pensacola,  and,  on  the  ever  mem 
orable  8th  of  January,  1815,  defeated  General 
Packenham,  the  brother-in-law  of  Wellington,  with 
a  loss  of  three  thousand,  his  own  loss  being  seven 
killed  and  six  wounded.  After  such  a  victory  an 
American  could  hold  up  his  head.  A  few  months 
before  our  Capitol  had  been  burned  by  a  small 
British  force,  the  Government  had  run  away  and 
was  wandering  in  the  woods  on  the  upper  Potomac ; 


PATRIOTS   AND   BENEFACTORS     161 

there  was  no  army  or  money  and  neither  could  be 
raised.  Madison,  Monroe  and  their  own  chosen 
general,  Winder,  had  wholly  lost  the  confidence  of 
the  Country.  Besides  these  calamities,  New  Eng 
land,  tired  of  the  rule  of  the  Virginia  dynasty,  was 
guilty  of  the  political  crime  of  talking  disunion 
and  re-affirming  Jefferson 's  Kentucky  Resolutions 
of  1798.  Jackson's  victory  brought  at  once  inter 
nal  peace  and  union  and  removed  the  disgrace  of  a 
captured  Capital.  Again,  in  1832,  President  Jack 
son  crushed  nullification  in  its  first  stages  and 
ended  disunion  before  it  could  spread.  Two  pas 
sages  from  the  immortal  Proclamation  of  Decem 
ber  10,  must  be  reproduced :  '  '  I  consider,  then,  the 
power  to  annul  a  law  of  the  United  States  assumed 
by  one  State,  incompatible  with  the  existence  of  the 
Union,  contradicted  expressly  by  the  letter  of  the 
Constitution,  unauthorized  by  its  spirit,  inconsis 
tent  with  every  principle  on  which  it  was  founded, 
and  destructive  of  the  great  object  for  which  it  was 
formed."  Referring  to  the  South  Carolina  nulli- 
fiers,  he  adds :  "  Their  object  is  disunion.  But  be 
not  deceived  by  names.  Disunion  by  armed  force 
is  treason.  Are  you  ready  to  incur  its  guilt?  If 
you  are,  on  the  heads  of  the  instigators  of  the  act 
be  the  dreadful  consequences;  on  their  heads  be 
the  dishonor,  but  on  yours  may  fall  the  punish 
ment."  Mr.  Jefferson  pronounced  General  Jack 
son  i  i  a  dangerous  man. ' '  Very  true,  but  dangerous 
only  to  the  enemies  of  a  more  perfect  Union.  Old 
Hickory  loved  his  Country  as  intensely  as  he  loved 
his  wife.  The  sight  of  an  enemy  of  either  would 

fire  his  wrathful  soul. 

11 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


Acadians,  arrival  of,  good  citizens,  28. 

Adams,  John,  presidential  term,  83;  Natchez  district,  86;  Hol 
land  treaties,  37;  peace  treaty,  39;  suspicions  of,  41; 
French  depredations,  90. 

Administration,  the  first,  its  wisdom,  73;  parties  formed,  74; 
combines  against  it,  75. 

Algerine  pirates,  75. 

Appalachee  Bay,  visited  by  De  Soto,  9. 

Arkansas,  crossed  by  De  Soto,  10;  by  De  Tonty,  18;  State 
described,  130. 

Arrivals  from  France,  supplies,  soldiers,  priests,  nuns,  wives, 
23. 

Astor,  John  Jacob,  25. 

Baltimore,  second  Lord,  25. 

Bancroft,  George,  allusion  to  St.  Louis,  32. 

Bellerive,  St.  Ange  de,  in  command  at  St.  Louis,  31. 

Beaujeu,  inordinate  conceit,  15;  lands  wrong  place,  returns  to 
France,  16. 

Bienville,  explores  Mississippi  River,  "English  Turn,"  21; 
sends  men  and  munitions  to  Spaniards,  22;  restored  to 
power  as  governor,  25;  defeated  by  Natchez  tribe,  retires 
from  service,  27. 

Biloxi,  Bay  of,  settlement  on,  21;  removing  stores  from,  26. 

Boisbriant,  major  of  fort,  21. 

Bonaparte,  sudden  resolution  to  sell  Louisiana,  motives  in 
selling,  117;  prophecies,  119;  obscurity  desirable,  120; 
tries  to  rue  bargain,  124. 

Boone,  Daniel,  effectual  pioneer  work,  33. 

Buchanan's  station,  desperate  defense  of,  72. 

Burgmont,  27. 

Burke,  Edmund,  friend  of  Lord  Shelburne,  43. 

Carondelet,  governor  of  Louisiana  and  West  Florida,  builds 
fortifications,  trades  with  United  States,  81;   slave  insur 
rection,  grants  of  land,  82. 
163 


164  GENERAL  INDEX 

Charles  V.  and  De  Soto,  9. 

Chatham,  Earl  of,  75. 

Chickasaw  Bluff,  10. 

Claiborne,    W.   C.   C.    transfer    commissioner,    127;    without 
capacity,  128. 

Clark,  George  Rogers,  brilliant  exploits,  33. 

Colbert,  aids  La  Salle,  13;  succeeded  by  his  son,  15. 

Colorado,  State  of,  present  conditions,  great  future,  136. 

Company  of  the  West,  succeeds  Antony  Crozat,  25. 

Creators  and  Preservers  of  the  Republic,  supplement,  142. 

Cortez,  conquered  Mexico,  incorporated  invading  army,  8. 

Crozat,  Antony,  advent  of,   23;   monopoly,  24;   trade  restric 
tions,  five  years  of  failure,  25. 

Cruzat,  governor  at  St.  Louis,  31. 

Cuba,  De  Soto  sails  from,  Pizarro's  daughter  governs,  9. 

Dates,  three  most  significant,  117. 

Dauphin  Island,  a  fleet  station,  22. 

Definitive  Treaty  of  Peace  with  Great  Britain,  ratified  by 
Congress,  48. 

De  Grasse,  41. 

De  Remonville,  early  friend  of  La  Salle,  19;  reported  rich 
minerals,  20. 

De  Soto,  how  ambition  was  fired,  8;  his  cruelties,  supplies 
from  Cuba,  9;  death  and  burial,  10. 

De  Vaca,  accounts  of  river  of  gold,  8. 

Du  Pratz,  26. 

Embargo,  130. 

England's  long-continued  hostility,  early  proofs,  76. 

First  cargo  of  slaves,  26. 

Fontainebleau,  treaty  of,  28. 

Fort  Thuillier,  built  by  Leseuer,  abandoned  in  1704,  22. 

Fox,  C.  J.,  unfriendly  to  this  country,  43. 

Franklin,  first  treaties,  35;  grasps  great  opportunity,  36; 
sends  for  Jay  and  Adams,  38;  peace  treaty  work,  40; 
felicity  of  diction,  41;  state  of,  57;  at  an  end,  58;  brief 
sketch  of  most  important  services,  149. 

French  aid  to  America,  41;  later  enmity,  76;  material  assist 
ance,  150. 

Frontenac,  supports  La  Salle,  13,  17;   recalled  to  France,  15. 
Galvez,  becomes  governor,  30;  brilliant  exploits,  32;  governor 
of  Mexico,  character,  49. 


GENERAL  INDEX  165 

George  III.,  signs  peace  treaty,  48;  disliked  his  disloyal  sub 
jects,  75. 

Genet,  "Citizen,"  organized  Jacobin  clubs,  dismissed,  77;  ex 
peditions  fail,  81. 

Goday,  despicable  character,  77. 

Grant,  U.  S.,  character  and  career  of,  155. 

Hammond,  wrangling  with  Jefferson,  69. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  saw  value  of  Louisiana  first,  45;  home 
industries  advocated,  46;  assures  British  agent  of  our 
stability,  63;  report  of  passage  of  British  troops,  67,  68; 
establishes  national  credit,  74;  fears  aggression  in  Mis 
sissippi  region,  84;  flat-footed  for  acquisition  of  Louis 
iana,  85;  letter  to  Otis,  its  purport,  86;  favors  ratifica 
tion  of  Louisiana  treaty,  125;  career  and  services  of,  145. 

Harrison,  Wm.  Henry,  worthy  successor  of  Wayne,  80. 

Hartley,  David,  selected  by  Franklin,  signer  of  definitive 
treaty,  38. 

Hennepin,  Louis,  first  described  Niagara  Falls,  14;  adopted 
name  Louisiana,  19. 

Iberville,  services,  at  mouth  of  Mississippi,  on  Dauphin 
Island,  up  great  river,  20;  finds  letter  of  De  Tonty,  re 
turns  to  France,  21;  extensive  explorations,  22;  Indian 
wars  instigated  by  Spaniards,  detained  in  France,  death 
from  yellow  fever,  23. 

Indian  hostilities,  defeat  of  Harmar  and  St.  Clair,  treachery 
of  Miro,  70;  checked  by  Shelby,  70;  massacre  of  family 
after,  71;  heroism  at  Buchanan's  Station,  72;  general 
hostility  in  1794,  78;  burning  of  Colonel  Crawford,  79. 

Indian  Territory,  area,  partly  within  treaty  limits,  141. 

Iowa,  brief  history  of  State,  conditions  contrasted,  statistics, 
132. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  bearer  of  good  news,  58;  victory  at  New 
Orleans,  early  admiration  of  Bonaparte,  94;  characteriza 
tion  of,  his  love  of  country,  160. 

Jay,  John,  foresight  of,  32;  part  in  treaty  of  1782,  39;  willing 
to  waive  free  navigation,  49. 

Jean  Francois  Le  Camp,  first  white  child  born  in  Louisiana, 
23. 

Jefferson,  T.,  favors  broad  expansion,  61;  on  England's  de 
signs,  65;  controversy  with  Hammond,  69;  helps  Genet 
organize  Jacobin  clubs,  77;  against  Jay  treaty,  81;  be- 


166  GENERAL  INDEX 

comes  president,  95;  affectionate  towards  Spain,  98; 
favors  war  with  France,  99;  a  wild  expansionist,  for 
peace  with  France,  100;  slurs  Napoleon,  willing  to 
guaranty  against  acquisition  of  Louisiana,  102;  oblivious 
of  events  in  Paris,  110;  vacillations,  dazed  by  treaty,  dis 
approves  at  first,  122;  sub  silentio  tactics,  twin  nation 
theory,  125. 

Joliet,  descends  Mississippi,  11;  explores  to  Arkansas  River, 
sketch  of,  loss  of  papers,  12. 

Joutel,  writings  helped  to  fix  Louisiana  and  other  early 
names,  19. 

Kansas,  history  of  State,  census  figures,  134. 

Lachine  Rapids,  loss  in  of  Joliet's  papers,  12. 

Laclede,  founder  of  St.  Louis,  31. 

La  Freniere,  put  to  death  by  O'Reilly,  29. 

La  Harpe,  26. 

La  Salle,  where  born,  troubles,  friends,  13;  extensive  explora 
tions,  builds  "Griffon,"  reaches  Mississippi,  descends  to 
mouth,  14;  names  region  Louisiana,  proclaims  Louis  XIV 
sovereign,  15,  16;  sufferings  of  colony,  foul  murder,  16; 
his  wrongs,  character,  17. 

Law,  John,  land  grant,  paper  money  scheme,  mobbed  in  Paris, 
26;  monopoly  ended,  27. 

Leseuer,  becomes  geologist,  21;    explores,  22. 

Levee  system  commenced,  27. 

Lemos,  Gayoso  de,  plotted  with  Wilkinson,  53;  nonsensical 
instructions,  90;  death,  91. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  characterization  of,  147. 

Livingston,  R.  R.,  secretary  of  foreign  affairs,  44;  instruc 
tions  to  peace  commissioners,  45;  sent  to  France,  96;  for 
wards  secret  treaty,  101;  sounds  France  on  Florida,  im 
portant  dispatch  to  president,  103;  tension  over  threat 
ened  French  occupation,  105;  to  Talleyrand  on  Florida, 
107;  on  Monroe's  appointment,  108;  negotiating  great 
treaty,  111;  till  midnight  with  Marbois,  112;  without 
powers,  113;  makes  known  treaty  in  London,  forwards  it 
to  Washington,  114;  labors,  results,  115,  116;  urges 
prompt  ratification,  124;  prophetic  words,  127;  sketch  of 
career,  157. 

Louis  XV  transfers  Louisiana  to  Spain,  28. 


GENERAL  INDEX  167 

Louisiana,  State  of,  conditions  in  1803  and  1900  contrasted, 
brief  history,  126. 

Madison,  James,  for  free  navigation,  47;  favors  forbearance, 
58;  reverses  his  politics,  79;  to  Rufus  King,  British  and 
Spanish  wrongs,  97;  constitutional  guaranty  against  ac 
quisition,  102;  last  dispatch  of  1802,  104;  to  Pinckney, 
106;  to  Livingston,  106;  to  Monroe,  107;  instructs  both 
ministers,  108;  abandons  west  bank,  remarkable  instruc 
tions,  109;  wants  Mississippi  for  boundary,  121;  rupture 
with  France  predicted,  blundering  diplomacy,  121;  lack 
of  statesmanship,  122. 

McGillivray,  Alex.,  suggested  Indian  union,  50;  career,  char 
acter,  Robertson's  estimate,  pension,  50,  51;  visits  seat  of 
government,  is  pensioned,  63;  excessive  demands,  gro 
tesque  display,  64;  uniting  all  tribes,  71. 

Marquette,  reaches  Mississippi  River  by  Wisconsin,  11;  re 
ceived  by  naked  chiefs,  12;  where  born,  character,  death, 
12;  reburial  by  Indians,  statue  of,  13. 

Marshall,  John,  character  and  services  of,  151. 

Minnesota,  conditions  in  1803  and  1900  contrasted,  133. 

Miro,  Estevan,  inciting  savages  against  Americans,  49;  ab 
surd  proclamation,  151;  attends  Indian  congress,  incrim 
inating  Wilkinson,  54;  tempting  Americans,  78. 

Mississippi  River,  discoverers  of,  when  and  where,  9,  10. 

Missouri,  sketch  of  State,  conditions  in  1803  and  1900,  128. 

Montana,  history  by  Miller,  its  area  and  wealth,  139. 

.Monroe,  James,  opposes  Jay  treaty,  81;  disregards  instruc 
tions,  96;  confers  with  Livingston,  113;  reception  de 
layed,  114;  Marbois'  history,  120;  dullness,  125. 

Morenger,  nephew  of  La  Salle,  killed  in  quarrel,  16. 

Morris,  G.,  committee  service,  46;  author  of  first  peace  in 
structions,  47. 

Moscoso,  successor  of  De  Soto,  10;  return  to  Spain,  11. 

Narvaez,  where  born,  7;  second  governor  of  Florida,  death,  8. 

Natchez,  district,  revenues  of,  51;  plans  to  survey,  firm  action 
of  Ellicott,  Guion  and  Pope,  87;  Lemos  and  Carondelet 
give  trouble,  88;  Spaniards  evacuate,  Sargent,  first  gov 
ernor,  89. 

Natchez  massacre,  25. 

Nebraska,  sketch  of  State,  wealth  and  population,  135. 


168  GENERAL  INDEX 

New  Orleans,  founding  of,  26;  advance  in  trade,  30;  port 
closed  to  Americans,  91. 

North  Dakota,  date  of  admission,  population,  wealth,  138. 

Ohio,  origin  of  name,  12;  discovery,  14;  settlement  at 
Marietta,  60. 

Oklahoma,  territory  of,  part  of  treaty  tract,  140. 

O'Reilly,  took  control  at  New  Orleans,  cruelty,  29. 

Oswald,  Richard,  presented  to  Vergennes  by  Franklin,  dom 
inated  by  him,  38,  40. 

Peace  treaties  of  1782-3,  who  made  them,  34. 

Penn,  William,  25. 

Perier,  Governor,  began  levees,  27. 

Perez,  Manuel,  governor  at  St.  Louis,  60. 

Peru,  conquest  of,  8. 

Piernas,  in  charge  at  St.  Louis,  31. 

Pinckney,  Thomas,  temper  good;  service  great,  69. 

Pitt,  William,  tries  to  influence  Spain,  67;  hostile  to  this 
country,  75. 

Pontiac,  killing  of,  31. 

Population  of  Lower  Louisiana  in  1788,  of  Upper  Louisiana, 
59;  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  60;  of  Upper  Louisiana 
in  1799,  91. 

Ratification  of  Louisiana  treaty,  125. 

Revolutionary  generals  to  whom  we  owe  most,  35. 

Robertson,  James,  services  of,  33;  made  brigadier-general,  63; 
his  noble  words,  72;  drove  off  Indians,  73;  victory  over 
Chickamaugas,  80. 

Rochambeau,  41. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  on  Gouverneur  Morris,  47;  on  Jefferson, 
123. 

San  Ildefonso,  treaty  of,  92,  98. 

Sauvol,  placed  in  command,  governor,  21;    early  death,  22. 

Seignelay,  succeeds  Colbert,  an  expedition  for  La  Salle,  15. 

Sevier,  John,  great  services,  33;  work  in  Watauga  region,  56; 
general  of  military  district,  63;  nephews  killed,  72. 

Shelburne,  Lord,  negotiations  for  peace,  38;  friend  of  Amer 
ica,  hated  by  George  III,  42;  driven  from  office,  43; 
Lecky's  estimate  of  him,  44;  retirement,  75. 

Slaves,  first  cargo  of,  26. 

South  Dakota,  area,  admission  to  Union,  population,  138. 

Spain,    rejects   construction    of   peace   treaty,    holds   Natchez 


GENERAL  INDEX  169 

district,  49;  exactions,  indignation  of  westerners,  52; 
denies  free  navigation,  58;  letter  from  Madrid,  69; 
hostility,  snubbed  ministers,  78. 

Spaniards,  climax  of  blindness,  8. 

St.  Charles,  31. 

St.  Denis,  joins  colony,  explores  extensively,  22. 

St.  Louis,  lovely  site  of,  12;  founded,  31;  chief  place,  floods 
in,  60;  population  in  1799,  91. 

Sugar  cane  introduced  into  Louisiana,  first  sugar  mill,  28. 

Supplement,  patriots  and  benefactors,  142. 

Texas,  claims  to  by  French,  26. 

Tonty,  Henry  de,  searches  for  La  Salle,  18;  bark  letter,  death 
at  Mobile,  19. 

Trinity  River,  Texas,  scene  of  La  Salle's  murder,  16. 

Trudeau,  Zenon,  fur  trading  extended,  93. 

Tuscany  ceded  to  Spain,  98. 

Ulloa,  sent  out  from  Spain,  28. 

Unzaga,  became  governor,  mild  administration,  30. 

Upper  Louisiana,  materials  lacking  for  history,  Ex-Senator 
Henderson's  views,  91;  exempt  from  early  political 
strifes,  93. 

Valladolid,  where  Narvaez  was  born,  7. 

Velasquez,  conquered  Cuba,  7. 

Vergennes,  Count  de,  best  foreign  friend,  35;  confidential 
with  Franklin,  38;  character  of,  40;  made  treaty  with 
England,  final  support  of  our  extreme  treaty  claims,  41; 
loyal  and  true,  case  likened  to  that  of  Schley,  42;  latest 
French  estimate,  42;  rejoiced  over  peace,  48;  feeble  suc 
cessors,  77. 

Virginia  political  combine,  war  on  first  administration,  79. 

Washington,  military  successes,  35;  interest  in  Mississippi 
lands,  46;  on  coercion,  57;  tried  to  make  peace  with  the 
Creek  Indians,  63;  advises  Spain  to  be  wise  and  liberal, 
66;  war  made  on  him  by  ring  politicians,  79;  his  political 
Valley  Forge,  80;  allusion  to  Mississippi  in  farewell  ad 
dress,  83;  nationalism,  84;  exclamations  at  his  death,  93; 
characterization  of,  143. 

Washita,  massacre  at,  27. 

Wayne,  Anthony,  warrior  who  never  sleeps,  70;  victory  at 
Fallen  Timbers,  treaty  of  Greenville,  74. 

Webster,  Daniel,  characterization  of,  153. 


170  GENERAL  INDEX 

Wilkinson,  James,  career,  intrigue  with  Miro,  53;   treachery, 

54;    letters   to   Miro,    55;    fate   under  a  strict  rule,   56; 

forced  to  the  wall,  65;   treasonable  correspondence,   71; 

transfer   commissioner,  127;     Laussat's  estimate  of  him, 

128;  governor  of  Arkansas  district,  131. 
Wyoming,  brief  sketch  of,  140. 
Yazoo  River,  discovered  by  De  Soto,  10. 
Yazoo,  massacre  at,  27. 
Yorktown,  assault  on,  41. 




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